International Girls' Day Essay Competition Winners by Sarah D.

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Sarah DoyleEd2 - Kigali City
For International Girls' Day on October 11th, PCVs teamed up with Girl Hub, part of the Nike Foundation, to do an essay competition at some of our schools. The winners for both Kinyarwanda and English were sent along to me to select a few to go into Girl Hub's magazine, Ni Nyampinga. The magazine LOVED the essays and will be publishing excerpts from them all in the coming issue, but I thought this would be a good forum to post the English essays in their entirety. The question that we posed to the students was: "Why do you value yourself and what can you do to help develop your community?" Very often our students struggle with critical thinking, but I'm sure you'll agree, the essays below are very powerful and speak to the growing determination of young girls in Rwanda to not only study and create a future for themselves, but also to help their communities.
So now for the winners...
KABASINGA Flaviah,S6HEG, 18 years oldCollege De Rushaki,Gicumbi District, Northern ProvincePCV: Lucy Sung
Why do I value myselfand What can I do for my community?Value is somethinginside which makes one to be more important and to be useful. One can be valuedaccording to how one values herself in the society or among other people. I value myself in order to gain self respectamong others and this self respect cannot be given to me when I have not knownthe value I have. When one values herself, it will make her gain responsibilityin the community because everyone believes that she has knowledge and she iscapable of doing everything for the society. I value myself so thatI can uplift and restore the traditional culture of our community becauseculture makes all the people in the society to be unite and respective of eachother.When I value myself, Igain confidence and hope in myself to work and develop my community in order toachieve development and prosperity to the nation. The value I give to myselfmakes it easier for to plan for my future because when I get to know the valueI have, I don’t let it down but I fight to make it better even for people tohonour me. I value myself becauseam a co-creator of God so I have to make sure that God has more value thaneverything and I have to value myself so that God can be happy with me throughshowing good examples to other creatures.I value myself becauseam a coordinator of all living things in the world .I have the power andsupremacy to control and manage everything in the world.Value brings hope,peace, and love in the society that is why I value myself because when Irespect others they also respect me, which makes us equal ad makes me morevaluable.Value brings harmonyin the society because when I value myself and others, I give a good example toothers which makes the society to live happily.All I can do for mycommunity is to keep the value of our society is to respect each other andencourage them to have love, patience, and courage in what they do. For mycommunity, I can encourage them to have the spirit of the traditional cultureand nationalism in order to keep stability in the society. Encouraging people tohave confidence and to work hard in order to achieve development which canvalue our community. I can help my community to teach them what value is, whythey need it, and how they can achieve it, because value makes people to knowntheir human rights._________________________________________________________________
UWIMBABAZI Gemime, Senior 6 MCBE.S. BUGARAMA, Rusizi District, Western ProvincPCV: Jeff Monsma
I know I have value because:- I’m able to teach other girls.- I’m able to be and I will become a good leader.- I’m able to advise others.- I have the chance to study, while before girls didn’t getthat chance.- I have my self-esteem!- I know how to prevent AIDS.- I am able to fight against peer pressure.- I have the power to change the world.- I am able to create friendship between students.- I behave well- I am able to run the world, teaching women and girls abouthow theycan have self esteem, how they can fight peer pressure, andso on. AndI’ll do it because everything is possible!