Can Girls Really Do Anything?
“The wealthy elite continue to accumulate vast fortunes at the expense of ordinary people and particularly poor women and girls”
OXFAM Report “Time to Care”
Women and girls have been termed “the hidden engine” of today’s economic system and that is certainly evident in the urban poor communities where Flame is working in Phnom Penh. Women and girls work tirelessly in unpaid work behind the scenes and in work that pays very little. They often receive limited or no benefits and work irregular hours. Oxfam’s recent release https://www.oxfam.org/en/search?keys=time+to+care stated that women and girls “spend billions of hours cooking, cleaning and caring for the elderly” and have little time to get an education. This is exactly the space where the Flame team steps in and makes a difference.
I remember clearly when we began an intervention with one family with five children. They had lost their mother and times were understandably hard. Three of the children were school age, two boys and a girl, with one toddler and one infant. The grandmother of the family told us plainly that we didn’t need to concern ourselves about sending the elder girl to school, because she was in charge of minding the younger siblings. We gently told the grandmother that education was important and that we would find a solution for the childcare gap. This girl is now loving school and can read and write. She will be learning how to use a computer in another couple of years and will have the opportunity to attend university if she so wishes.
This was taken the day we visited the kids home and told them they could start school.
In our Flame Leadership Academy we now have 12 female students attending university. This is what you are doing when you support Flame… giving girls the chance to step rightly into society, armed with a solid education and leadership training that will enable them to fully participate in the global economy. They are equipped with not only a degree, but with the communication and inter-personal skills necessary to stand out in a crowd. It must be said that when these young people who have come from such hard circumstances get an education, they take their families with them out of poverty. This is worth investing in. It begins with little people who just don’t have the opportunity to go to primary school… and doesn’t end with university qualifications. This is just when the launching begins.
Please consider donating to our education programs. We can only do as much as we have finances to cover.
