It’s difficult to convince families in West Africa to educate their girls. Fathers point out that many middle school age girls get pregnant. Mothers worry about teachers taking advantage of their daughters (a very real threat). Girls themselves point out that education doesn’t always lead to employment. They are all right. The odds are against girls’ education in most West African countries. This is certainly true in Manda Darou Salam, Senegal.

Behavioral studies among adolescents throughout the world show that young people respect and listen to young people. When your friend encourages you to stay in school, or avoid unprotected sex, you listen. Unfortunately most western models concerning behavior change assume self-efficacy, believing you have everything at your disposal to carry out a decision once made. Most girls in Manda are easily convinced that education betters their lives. They do not, however, have say in whether they can continue schooling (this is a father’s decision), they cannot control unwanted advances by teachers (whether they take the form of rape, or coercion with grades as leverage), and they cannot control whether employers prefer to hire men or women.

So our maternal and child health focus has to involve parents. One way Peace Corps influences parents’ decision to keep their girls in school is through the Young Girls Scholarship Fund.

This program gives families financial incentive to keep their girls in school, provides students with a monthly stipend, and is based on financial need and scholarly merit.

Our maternal and child health theater tour (10 villages in 5 months) is training young girls in theater techniques, and disseminating information about forced marriage, unwanted pregnancy, HIV/AIDS transmission, and malaria prevention. In Manda the program pays for itself (a small free at the door pays for the generator and sound equipment). In neighboring villages we are depending on SPA, a USAID/Peace Corps initiative, to fund transport and food. Even funded events reach between 300 and 2,000 people for less than 100 USD per event.

If you’d like to contribute to girls education in Senegal please visit the Young Girls Scholarship link and find out how to get involved. Our tour is underway and already an enormous hit. Three radio stations are playing the sketches developed, and we’ve visited two villages (over 500 spectators). Its encouraging to see young people so enthusiastic about affecting their peers – and easy enough to make an already successful program replicable on a grander scale – when the ideas, education, and motivation had nothing to do with me. I show up and take pictures.