Camp Glow
(Armenia Camp GLOW 2010)
Camp GLOW is Helping Girls Shine
By Shannon Hembree
How do you instill confidence in young women? How do you challenge them to imagine a life that goes against what is expected of them in their community?
The Peace Corps has volunteers in over 60 posts around the world who are trying to answer those questions by organizing Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). Stepanavan Youth Center (SYC) is the organization that initiates and runs the project. Each Camp GLOW program is tailored to meet the needs of girls in their own communities. Some of the topics covered include healthy relationships, human rights, gender equality, nutrition, body image, and leadership.
Mari Chiba is a returned Peace Corps volunteer who helped to organize and lead Camp GLOW programs in Armenia. When describing Armenia, Chiba said, “A lot of people are still busy just trying to survive. They are worried about having enough food for their family and paying their bills.”
Girls in Armenia also face an uphill battle when it comes to equality. According to Chiba, “In Armenian culture, it is expected that women will marry young and have children and become housewives. Most young girls in my community went to college as a way to spend time before getting married, and they would get dressed up in heels and make up, and after classes men would stand around the college to look at the women.”
The Camp GLOW that Chiba organized was a partnership with a local youth center. It began as a five-day camp with dozens of campers and grew into an eight-day camp with over 50 participants. A typical day involved exercise, small-group sessions, large-group sessions, and other activities, such as a talent show, scavenger hunt, and jamboree organized by the girls.
“The reason that I love GLOW,” said Chiba, “is because you really see a change in the girls that participate. On gender day the girls reflected on the gender stereotypes in Armenia, and a lot of them had never considered the fact that physically it is possible for men and boys to do things like laundry and wash dishes.”
Chiba’s experience helped to build not only the self-esteem of girls in Armenia, but also her own. One project she organized was a feel-good project all around. For this project, Chiba taught a group of young women English for free in exchange for them going with her to visit kids at a boarding school for children of poor families and children with disabilities.
Chiba said of the boarding school project, “It raised my self-esteem for having a successful program, the self-esteem of the girls who volunteered for doing something positive for someone else, and it raised the self-esteem of the kids at the boarding school because they were getting some more individual attention. I think there are many of these sorts of needs in the United States. In your neighborhood, who do you see that you think could be better, or who needs help? What can you do to help? I think that volunteering is a good way to build self-esteem and is very rewarding.”
Not all of Chiba’s experiences in Armenia were self-esteem builders. According to Chiba, she heard the following often: “You shouldn’t read so much. Boys don’t like girls who read, and you’ll never get married.”
“At first,” said Chiba, “I took it really personally. After a while though, I just stopped listening, because honestly it was really exhausting to get upset every time someone said something like that to me.”
It’s no surprise that her advice to girls in the U.S. focuses on knowing who you are. “Believe in yourself. Only you know what is best for you.”
“Believe in yourself” is a great rule to live by, and it is one that is repeated over and over to the girls who attend Camp GLOW. It is something that everyone should embrace, because, as the girls who attended Camp GLOW learned, when you believe in yourself, it makes the impossible seem possible.
Tags: believe in yourself, camp, confidence, girls, glow, helping, peace corps, self esteem, shine
