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Lilian, her family and the characters who people I am Change are fictional, but their circumstances are real. The long, dangerous walk girls make to school, the hunger in their bellies, the leaves crammed into underwear to soak up their blood, the fathers who leave for second and third wives, the mothers lost to disease because there isn’t money for medicine, the bad touches from teachers, the lack of money for schoolbooks, the forced marriages and unmet dreams …
Every one of the thirty girls I interviewed while I was in Uganda researching the book had experienced a number – sometimes all – of these hurdles before they turned sixteen. And they were the lucky ones, the ones I met through aid organisations that were now helping them achieve their dreams. Organisations like Girl Child Network, Uganda who run empowerment clubs for girls; AAFCAD, who improve the lives of the people who live in Kampala’s poorest slum; Girls Not Brides a global partnership committed to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfil their potential; Concern for the Girl Child who empower vulnerable girls through sponsored education and The Uganda Youth Alliance for Family Planning and Adolescent Health who educate young people about the dangers of early sexual activity to enable them to stay in school longer. I saw the difference these organisations made to the girls’ lives, how they’d saved them from unwanted pregnancies and marriages to older men, fed them when they were hungry and sat them at desks. Girls who’d been forced to sell their bodies on the street were now able to read, women who’d grown used to being beaten now lived independently and ran their own businesses. I couldn’t leave Uganda without doing something to improve their lives, so on my return to Australia, I established Help Girls Learn, Uganda, an initiative to get girls into schools and keep them there. If you want to help better girls’ lives, click on the link below to donate. The money you provide will go to the five incredible organisations I worked with and will be used to empower and protect vulnerable girls in Uganda. Anything you can offer will be deeply appreciated. To read more about the five charities you will be supporting:
Girl Child Network, Uganda http://www.gcnuganda.org. AAFCAD www.affcad.org Girls Not Brides https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/take-action/ Concern for the Girl Child http://www.concernforgirlchild.or.ug The Uganda Youth Alliance for Family Planning and Adolescent Health https://www.uyafpah.org/ |
#Give a girl a book
Growing up in Australia, I stepped into the magic of stories every day, shedding my skin to try out different lives to test who I might be. In novels I discovered that girls could be heroes. And the more I read the larger my world grew. I had stories to make sense of the universe, atlases to reveal whole continents to me and dictionaries to add to my collection of words.
For too many girls in Uganda, books are a luxury. “Books,” they told me, “are more than just things made of paper and ink.” To turn the pages of a book meant gaining a vocabulary. It meant mastery of the English language and that meant a job. Which meant quieting their growling stomachs and paying for their siblings to stay in school.
Books were their escape, not just from a difficult day, but from a hard life. I talked to girls who walked through the bush to get to school, risking sexual assault and their rejection of their families; girls who sat cross-legged on the dirt floors of their classrooms while their brothers sat at desks; girls who sold their bodies for textbooks and washed their neighbours’ clothes to pay for excursions.
Reading wasn’t just about being transported to a different time and place. For the girls in the slums and villages of Uganda, books were their ladder out of poverty, a passport to a better life. Because it’s hard to escape abuse if you can’t read and write.
So what can we do?
We can give girls books.
When I posted #giveagirlabook on @authorsuzyzail a few months ago, calling on people during Book Week to spare a thought for the millions of girls who dream of owning a book, the response was impassioned and immediate. People wanted to give their pre-loved books to girls who couldn’t afford them. I just had to find a way to get their books to Africa. And that’s when I discovered Australian Books for Children of Africa, a non-profit organisation who have shipped more than 250,000 books to impoverished schools. And now that we’ve teamed up with them, we can get girls in Africa precious picture books, novels, dictionaries, history books and atlases.
Click HERE to find out how to donate your new or second hand books to girls who can’t otherwise afford them and mention #giveagirlabook to earmark your donation for girls in need.
Those books you've read that you’ll never re-read? Donate them. The childhood books you keep boxed up in the garage because you can’t bring yourself to throw them out? Let a girl in Africa turn the pages in wonder as you once did. If you’re a member of a local library, find out what they do with their old books. If you or your child go to school? The school will have to cull their library collection every year. Send them the link.
We might not have the power to change the world, but we can change one person’s world…starting with a book.