Making Futures Stronger

The pandemic has fallen hardest on the most vulnerable among us. While schools were closed for the last 3+ months, TGFT expanded our programming to welcome 23 students to ‘stay at home’ at The Girls Center ensuring they remain healthy, safe, and productive. Schools reopened on June 29 and TGFT students are well prepared with new skills and confidence.

TGFT Gap Girls 2020

COVID-19 interrupted the Gap Year Program, however Gap Girls asserted themselves as mentors by sharing their life skills trainings they’d learn during their first half of their Gap Year. They developed their own innovative curriculum for our COVID-19 Enrichment Program:

· to be academically active

· to broaden their computer skills

· to become informed about COVID-19

· to sew and donate 500+ masks and 75 reusable menstrual pad kits

· to make hand sanitizers and liquid soap

· to learn to cook

· to develop their digital and financial literacy through social entrepreneurship

During their Gap Year, Gap Girls learned to sew reusable menstrual pads and organized assembly lines to measure and cut fabric and to produce Girls Kits and masks.

Gap Girls donated masks to the staff at Gongali Lab, where they interned.

Girls in secondary school and high school lack computer skills because there is limited internet access at schools. During their Gap Year, Gap girls completed a computer course and taught our students how to set up an email account, how to create a word document and excel sheet. This became a critical skill during the pandemic when their teachers started sending homework assignments by email.

For the first time our students participated in distance learning in a 12-week online Social Entrepreneurship course. They developed an inclusive business for their menstrual pad kits and masks initiative. Six students earned Certificates of Completion on “A Brief Overview of Social Entrepreneurship-A Master’s Level Overview (https://www.mymindmyhand.org).

Distance Learning

During the pandemic in which everyone’s leadership has been tested, our students learned important skills on how to be flexible, creative and resilient. We are proud of every single one of our young leaders who continue to dream big.

Daily Exercising

We are so grateful to friends who’ve supported our efforts in meeting the needs of vulnerable adolescent girls and young women during these challenging times.