Peace Corps World Wise Schools

In honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, this issue of World Wise Window is dedicated to women and girls around the world. From Albania to Zambia, and every country in between, Peace Corps Volunteers work every day to empower women and raise awareness of women's rights and contributions to their communities.

This month, use World Wise Schools’ rich resources to connect your students with the experiences of women and girls around the world. Learn about health issues that affect women and girls, and how Peace Corps Volunteers’ projects increase nutrition and health practices in their communities. Explore comparisons between the women’s suffrage movement in the United States with women’s continued efforts to achieve political and economic equality worldwide. Take action with a service learning activity focused on girls’ needs. Study the contributions of women to science, math, and technology, and use Peace Corps Volunteers’ experiences to demonstrate real-world applications of these skills. Invite a returned Peace Corps Volunteer speaker to talk to your students about her cultural experiences.

International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month offer a unique opportunity to celebrate all that women worldwide have achieved in the struggle for equality, prosperity, education, and peace. Understanding these contributions, and the need for continued progress, will help prepare students to be global citizens in the 21st-century.

Q: As a Peace Corps Volunteer, what projects have you worked on that empower women or girls? Why are these projects important in your country of service?

A: The women's empowerment activities I have engaged in include: creating an annual sponsorship program for the girls in my village who could not afford to go to secondary school; participating in a girl’s empowerment conference with plans for a second conference; writing a grant for a vocational training center for at risk youth... more

Catherine Scully, Community Development Peace Corps Volunteer, Tanzania

Did you know? In many of the 76 host countries with Peace Corps programs, International Women's Day is a national holiday.

Source: peacecorps.gov

Lesson Plan

Healthy Girls, Healthy Villages: In a narrated slide show, Peace Corps Volunteer Vivian Nguyen explains the challenges facing girls in Niger, and how a program called Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) helps provide education and life skills.

Students investigate the problems of poverty, nutrition, and health, and how education can provide a better future for children and communities.

Videos and Photos

Learn how Peace Corps Volunteers around the world are working with communities to improve education, health, and economic status of girls and women. Watch how Volunteers are improving nutrition in Mali, supporting business development in Senegal, and empowering girls through dance in Kazakhstan.

Check out the Peace Corps’ collection of photographs in honor of International Women’s Day.

Translation

A French version is now available for Water Source Protection.

In this slide show, Peace Corps Volunteer Lauren Fry describes how she used her background in engineering to work with her community in Cameroon to create a springbox to protect their source of drinking water and improve the health of children and families.

Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya with counterpart.

Ask your Volunteer match to share stories of women and girls in his or her country of service.

Use these stories as a starting point for discussions about culture, the importance of efforts to expand girls’ education, or to compare with issues facing girls/children in students’ own communities.

You can compare your Volunteer’s experiences with stories from other Volunteers available in World Wise Schools’ resources.

Women in Science Looking to motivate students with real-world examples of women in the fields of science and technology? Share these slide shows of Peace Corps Volunteers’ science-based contributions to their communities: Sarah Klain’s sea turtle conservation project in Palau, Lauren Fry’s water source protection solution in Cameroon, and Kristina Owens’ DNA analysis of fruit trees to improve harvests in Bolivia.
Peace Corps Challenge Have students play the Educating Village Girls challenge in the fictional village of Wanzuzu. As Virtual Volunteers, they will explore the issues that prevent girls from attending school, and make decisions about how best to improve education and economic well-being.
WWS Podcast Listen to the story “Of Brooms and Filmmaking,” and hear about Peace Corps Volunteer Susan Miller-Coulter's experience working with Jordanian girls to produce a film about water shortages in Jordan.
UNICEF Podcast Interested in learning more about the status of girls’ education around the world? Listen to the UNICEF Podcast for International Women’s Day, a discussion about the progress girls have made and the challenges that remain.