Our Holiday Retreat is a 3-week residential gathering of the Africa ELI secondary students occurring between school terms. The purpose of the retreat is to ensure that girls receive adequate time to review the previous term’s lessons; provide them with career guidance; equip them with computer skills, critical thinking, and problem solving skills; develop their leadership ability; provide them with individual interaction and mentorship; and create a safe environment for the girls between holiday breaks. Here are some highlights from the first week…
Day1
When girls arrived at the retreat location, they enjoyed a spaghetti dinner prepared by Zaharah, selected their bedrooms, and settled in for a comfortable night’s rest.
Day 2
The day began with jogging and yoga in the front yard. The main activity of the day was a public speaking challenge in which each girl described one exciting moment from term one.
Some shared about their academic successes, others related stories about sports activities, and some spoke about an agricultural field trip. The group then discussed ways to improve their public speaking skills, such as standing and facing the audience and using nonverbal expressions.
Day 3
A guest speaker, Ms. Nalutaaya Norah, led a discussion about reproductive health and avoiding early pregnancy. The girls identified staying in school, learning about family planning, and avoiding early (forced) marriages as effective deterrents to early pregnancy. In order to help improve their situational awareness, Zaharah took the girls for a walk around the neighborhood and Charles instructed them to draw maps of what they saw.
Day 4
Students focused on learning basic computer skills. They practiced keyboarding, creating a document, and saving files.
Day 5
Ms. Kevin Akwero, a trainer and facilitator at KIBO foundation and an alumna of the Young African Leadership Initiative, facilitated a session on making career choices. She emphasized the importance of setting goals and developing skills. When asked to identify their career interests, the girls listed teaching, banking, and medicine among others. One girl plans to become an engineer so that she can help build a road in her community back in South Sudan.
Day 6
The girls participated in a formal debate on the question of whether international peacekeeping missions are necessary for solving ethnic conflicts in African countries. Points of discussion included possible paths towards peace and reconciliation, the failures of past peace treaties, how the root causes of ethnic conflict are misunderstood, the corruption within the humanitarian aid system, the state of the refugee camps, and the abuse of women and girls.
Day 7
A visit to the Uganda Museum gave students an opportunity to learn more about their host country. The museum guide educated the girls about the Buganda people and their culture. They saw displays of textiles, trade and transport, natural resources, and geographic formations in Uganda.
Our Mission
By providing access to education, Africa ELI prepares young women in South Sudan to become leaders in their families and communities, engage in business enterprise, counteract inequalities, improve health practices, and work toward improving society for the benefit of all citizens.
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