Group Empowers Young Girls
(Posted February 27, 2017)
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Yassim Sarr is the co-founder and co-director of Starfish International, a nonprofit working to inspire and empower young girls (and one boy) to become leaders through education and the teaching of ethical leadership in The Gambia. Women currently make up a little over half of the world’s population, yet 31 million girls aren’t even entering primary school. In places like The Gambia, girls are expected to grow up and get married. Starfish International is working to change this by not only educating the girls, but also helping to build up their confidence.
They focus on four pillars to help the girls grow mentally and emotionally. These four are: nobility, independence, courtesy, and service. In addition to these, they also have a pledge that all Starfish girls work to memorize. The pledge reminds them that they are not their circumstances, they are made of their beliefs not their past, and that despite whatever anyone else says or anything that happens they can, “keep going forward.”
Through the memorization of this pledge, the girls find their own voice and begin to be able to speak and take care of themselves. At the age of 14, each girl starts her own small business so that they can learn to be financially stable, which is especially helpful in situations where their parents may not fully support their education.
The Starfish International organization does not teach these girls what to think, but instead gives them the tools for critical thinking and research that enables them to come up with their own conclusions to the many issues plaguing our world, as well as the specific issues affecting their communities.
The group promotes the ideal that, “everything you do in life should be in service to humanity.” They reinforce this ideology by teaching the girls the importance of giving back to their community now and later, after they have received their education.
The work being done by Starfish International is beneficial not only to the girls, but also directly and indirectly to the community as it brings more and more opportunity to the generations that follow.
Isabella Bennett ’20, Juniata Online Journalist
Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.