In 2013, Women for a Change launched the gShe program in schools across Cameroon. Ten (10) colleges were earmarked for this pilot phase of the gShe program. The program otherwise referred to as gender, Sexuality/society, and health (gShe) is a weekly non-graded curricular based that seeks to empower adolescents with the right education, understanding, and skills to make informed decisions about their SRHR, access services and career opportunities for their personal and leadership development.
It’s now 10 years of delivering the gShe program in school and we are looking back at the impacts and lessons learned over the years. The program has reached over 500,000 adolescents in-person and over a million virtually which was the innovation which emerged during the COVID19 era when everything was happening virtually. Because we could not loose on the momentum we had sustained with our students and the schools, we began exploring alternative ways on how to keep the education and also support the students in embracing the power of the technology. That’s how the e-learning platform (https://gshe.wfaccameroon.org ) was born where the gShe program was now digitalized, offering opportunities to adolescents who may not necessarily be part of the pilot colleges to also self-enroll and learn through a guided tutor.
Speaking to some over 100 gShe alumni and students, on the impact they felt taking gShe, 99.9% confirmed the positive impact the gShe program had on them, academically, socially, career path choice just to name a few.
To begin with, Ramatu (18), a Form 4 science said academically, after attending the program for the past three years, she learned how to boldly express herself in front of people as she was often criticized by her fellow classmates as well as teachers for always shying away. In addition, she feels empowered enough and is proud with some of the life choices she makes.
Josephine (22), a gShe alumni alluded that the gShe program transformed the way she viewed her body and instilled in her some sense of confidence. “Growing up she was never comfortable in her body and would always feel insecure and shamed that she was obsessed and not good enough”.
While according to Clara (22), a gShe alumni explained that the program inspired her to study Women and Gender Studies in the University. “It oriented me on what to do with her life as it was not along about the education but also the coaching and mentorship received from the facilitators and even your peers. All these helped shaped my career path and when it was time to enroll in the universities, I didn’t have difficulties choosing a program like my other peers. This is because I have had years of mentorship as a gShe student for over 5 years”.
Just like Clara, 5 other students were very happy for attending the program as it helped them understand and know how to go about choosing their career path after their studies. This was greatly influenced by the program on career option given to them by the Wfac/gShe program. One of the students appreciated the fact that she wanted to be a journalist at first which she didn’t like but was now happy to be an event planner.
To others while this helped shaped their career path and instill in them confidence, to some students, the program was more about attitude transformation. For instance, Mary (17) shares that “learning about fairness towards others as nobody knows how tomorrow would be” to her, is one of the greatest learning from the gShe program. She believes that our society is so filled with rudeness and lack of empathy towards humans and it’s time humans are reminded to be kind to each other, learned how to treat people with respect and honor.
Another group of students had the issue of making friends as well as their relationships with other people. They found it difficult in making new friends as they were the kind of shy people but thanks to the program, they were taught on how to find one through “Relationship Web’’.
Finally, the last set of students gave their own opinion on the program and how it impacted them on the fact that they learnt about Human Rights matters and couldn’t believe that it could be applied in real life as they thought it was only written on papers. They were proud to declare that they have rights and know that they could now stand for their rights and no longer discouraged because of the situation of the country.
Conclusively, it could be said that a majority of the students that attended the program found it important and have been affected positively and were very honored for the great opportunity given to them by attending the program as it helped shed more lights to them academically, on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG”s), Human Rights issues, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) as well as career orientation and wished it would never end.
Proud to say as we reflect back on 10 years of the gShe program, we have gShe alumni in diverse sectors across the countries. Some are leading community actions, some teachers teaching in colleagues, others are graduates, university students, NGO workers, entrepreneurs, bankers, medical professionals, diplomats, junior parliamentarians etc. The gShe alumni pool is so rich and diverse and we are happy to see them continuing living up to the feminist principles and gShe values that was taught to them.
There have been so much learning and lessons to draw from and one key learning we are proud to share is that without a doubt, when adolescents’ girls are provided with the right education and information, they build their agency and are able to make better long-life decisions. Today, some of the gShe alumni are strong movement actors in the MIFALI group where they continue to build adolescents power and agency.
