Home of hope is an orphanage that runs strictly on donor aid and rarely has any government funding.
Some of you might have heard of it because Madonna's aid organization "Raising Malawi" donates to it and of course gets a lot of media coverage. I have conflicting view points on the orphanage itself, but that's not what this post is about. 
Home of hope provides clothing, shelter, education and care to over 500 children without families to provide for them. Like many places in Malawi the girls are failing to go to school due to menstruation issues and I was asked by Raising Malawi to come and do a 3 day training at home of hope orphanage.
Myself and 2 other peace corps volunteers worked tirelessly for 3 days to provide the girls information on sexual health, reproductive health, natural beauty, confidence, communication, gender based violence, and human rights. There were around 100 girls from standard 6 (6th grade) to form 4 (12th grade) who attended this training
We started off a bit shy and quiet and by the end of the training were asking thought provoking questions and starting to critically think about issues facing women here in Malawi.
During one session lead by fellow PCV, Lauren, the girls were asked questions about rights particularly concerning their bodies.
When asked if they dressed in short dresses they deserved rape or harassment nearly all of them agreed, when asked if their husbands could rape them nearly all of them said no,
when asked if they had to have sex with their husbands even if they didn't want to they nearly all said yes. . .
As a woman, especially one who would never even second guess my answers to these questions (which were all completely opposite) I was in complete culture shock. It amazes me that I've been her for almost 2 years and am still sometimes put into place by responses from girls nearly half my age. Human rights and gender equality are something we take for granted, we over look these things in our work because we can't fathom them happening but I have to take a look back and realize that this isn't America, these girls rarely get choices, rarely get to say no to violence.
This weekend brought about a lot of struggles and has me thinking about my future in the developing world. How do we even begin to educate these girls when the culture they live in doesn't support it. If they refuse their husbands sex or if they wear what they choose they are beaten and raped and punished. I know this is happening all over the world and I admit to being naive and closing my eyes to it before but it's hard for me to continue doing that now.
The girls at Home of hope provided an eye opening experience to me and I hope that the girls at least learned a little from us as well.
On a lighter note we had fun doing pad project and every girl got to learn how to sew these reusable pads! There is currently a volunteer from Japan at the orphanage as well as a volunteer from Australia who will be helping these girls continue to make them and maybe even set up a business selling them.
Here's some pics:
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