Comments (1)

By Tammy Tibbetts, August 31, 2010 8:26 pm

The next batch of correspondence from our Kisa Scholars, sponsored by the GIRLS WHO ROCK NY benefit concert, are in! Leave your comments and we’ll circle them back to the girls to read, and they’ll answer any questions you have.

Grace Lyimo

Thanks! To be honest you really make happy when I read your message. On first day of the coming month, we’re going to start our examination and after that we will be having an holly day [holiday] of about one and a half or two months. So on this week I will be very busy, final preparation before having my terminal examination. Hope you will be praying for us so that we will would do
something ” wondering” [wonderful].

To me you have been like sisters and I hope one day we will meet face to face. I can’t imagine how happy will I be to see you my dear sisters. I love you all! I will inform you much about how life goose [goes] and how are things at my home and my community [are], because it have been long time since I left my home and come to school. I hope to hear from you soon! Don’t forget to pray for us!!! All the best. – Grace Lyimo

Elizabeth David

Hi guys
How are you? I hope you are all well, am just a little busy preparing for my terminal exams which will start on Wednesday this week. Thanks a lot guys for sharing some different cultures that you have in the US. That thing about the accent, I hear it in the movies. [We told her that in the US, people from different states sometimes speak a little differently.] We finished working on the book before we left from the internship and it was such an amaizing experience.

Hey guess what! Next week on Thursday we are gonna start our one month holiday. I’m so excited about going home seeing my mother and sisters. I also miss my friends and home cooked food. I will also get a chance to [show] my mom your
pictures. I will be realy happy to see your video [about Peru]! My greetings to all. – Elizabeth David

Happiness Monyo

Hellow there, well I would love to be an economist because I love economics. What I like most in Tanzania are the honey pots found like the national parks, reserves, water bodies and most of all the peaceful environment found in Tanzania…We are in the week of exams, so many people are busy..and we are going to close for the holidays..am so excited that I will see my family after 6months. – Happiness Monyo

[Editor's Note: Some light grammatical edits have been made to original messages for clarity.]

Comments (6)

By Tammy Tibbetts, July 28, 2010 7:37 am

Ashley Shuyler, founder of AfricAid and the Kisa Project, on the GIRLS WHO ROCK red carpet

Ashley Shuyler, the founder of AfricAid and its interactive sponsorship program called the Kisa Project, wrote us a detailed progress report on each of the three Tanzanian students we sponsor with profits from GIRLS WHO ROCK in New York City. As we previously blogged, the girls finished a 10-day leadership training summit in July, where they not only learned to launch a business and write a children’s book, but they also created these three videos in which they narrate their lives and dreams!

We proudly present to you each girl’s assessment from Ashley and her digital story — this is your chance to know her better than ever before. Please take a moment to leave a comment back to any or all of the girls, as we will be forwarding them along!

Elizabeth David

“Elizabeth is one of the smartest girls in the group, usually keeping her opinion quiet, but speaking up at critical moments of a discussion, at which point the other girls really pay attention. As you’ll see in her story, she is committed to becoming a businesswoman so that she can prove to men that girls are capable of doing great things as well. She’s also quite the fashionista of the group, and spent a lot of time looking at the photos of you all and commenting on how beautiful everyone is. She truly couldn’t believe that Kat Deluna had performed for her, and she loved watching the video as well and seeing the other performers. She picked up using the computers really quickly and was soon doing Google searches for “Disney movies,” which made me smile. She’s a truly special young lady.”

Grace Lyimo

“I wrote the following about Grace in a dispatch home to friends and family: ‘I wish I could share with you the stories of each of these extraordinarily special young women. But I firmly believe that you’ll be hearing about them in the years ahead – they are determined to make big changes for their families, communities, and nation. One student, Grace, approached me early on in the workshop. Although she was the athlete and jokester of the group, I realized immediately that she had a big vision that she demanded to be taken seriously. She told me that, ever since she was young, she had felt an irresistible need to help orphans and street children – but that her brothers and family had simply laughed at her when she expressed this goal to them. She told me that she had given up hope – both for her dream and for herself – but that everything changed when she was selected for the Kisa Project.  She asked me one evening not long before the end of our time together, “Do you really think I can do it? Can I really help street kids?” When I told her that every person in Kisa was behind her, she revealed that she had already begun making plans to start a small business, through which she would donate a portion of her profits to support street children, and she was beginning to research how to adopt orphans – so that she could adopt two of them in later life. I hugged her with the deepest of admiration.’  You can see that she truly tugged at my hearstrings.  Even though she presents herself as a tough, athletic and cool young lady on the outside (and, by the way, has an unbelievably sophisticated sense of humor), she has the most well-defined and serious vision out of all of our Kisa Scholars, and is absolutely determined to bring it to life.”

Happiness Monyo

“Happiness is quiet and unassuming in a group, but when talking one-on-one with her, she comes to life and is really one of the smartest in the group, right up there with Elizabeth. She is very community-minded and would always be watching out for the group and generously helping her fellow students, even when she, herself, came down with a cold. As you’ll see in her digital story, she’s also quite the artist and has had a challenging childhood. She, along with the others, was so excited to hear about the concert!”

Comments (0)

By Tammy Tibbetts, July 25, 2010 8:39 pm

Group shot: Ashley with the Kisa Scholars during her visit to Tanzania in July

Attendees, performers, and donors from our first GIRLS WHO ROCK benefit concert, June 10 in NYC, won’t want to miss this update!

As you know, your support sponsored Elizabeth, Grace, and Happiness in the Kisa Project, a secondary school educational program AfricAid runs in Tanzania, which also enrolls the girls in computer and leadership training. Our Scholars email us messages at least once a month, and we post them here to the blog for you to comment on, and then we relay those messages back to them. Right here on shesthefirst.org, we are so awed to watch a two-year cross-cultural exchange and digital storytelling project unravel, all from one rockin’ night in New York City.

Kisa Scholars present their Kisanet business plan to a group of 30 parents, teachers, guests, and heads of school.

There are some BIG updates with the Kisa Project that recently came our way from founder Ashley Shuyler! She just returned to Colorado from 10 weeks in Tanzania, where she ran a 10-day leadership summit with the girls. The girls had a challenge: start a sustainable service project or business that they would take back to their school communities. They had to write a business plan, create a budget and a marketing plan, and present all this to 30 parents, teachers, and heads of school. Ashley says the end product was remarkable. The Scholars chose to teach computer classes at a low cost to students and community members who otherwise couldn’t afford to take such a course. Ashley writes:

Their reasoning behind choosing a computer-based project was compelling: they identified that, although they have little capital, they do have an incredible resource in the Kisa-installed computer labs at their partner schools; and, at the same time, their research revealed a great need for increased computer literacy in Tanzania – not only do most jobs now require some familiarity with computers, but additionally, the Tanzanian government recently mandated that all college applications be submitted online, even when most students have never used a computer. I couldn’t have been prouder when, on the final day of the workshop, the students launched their inaugural computer class to a group of street kids and young Maasai women from a local school – all of whom left the class chattering excitedly about their new-found knowledge skills. This, from a group of girls who themselves had never touched a computer before becoming part of Kisa.

We have to say with special pride that in Ashley’s email to AfricAid’s supporters, she singled out one girl’s story from this leadership workshop — and it was Grace, one of our girls! Here’s what she said:

One student, Grace, approached me early on in the workshop. Although she was the athlete and jokester of the group, I realized immediately that she had a big vision that she demanded to be taken seriously. She told me that, ever since she was young, she had felt an irresistible need to help orphans and street children – but that her brothers and family had simply laughed at her when she expressed this goal to them. She told me that she had given up hope – both for her dream and for herself – but that everything changed when she was selected for the Kisa Project.  She asked me one evening not long before the end of our time together, “Do you really think I can do it? Can I really help street kids?” When I told her that every person in Kisa was behind her, she revealed that she had already begun making plans to start a small business, through which she would donate a portion of her profits to support street children, and she was beginning to research how to adopt orphans – so that she could adopt two of them in later life. I hugged her with the deepest of admiration. (If you’re interested, you can watch a digital story created by Grace and her dreams here.)

Ashley also sent us individual feedback on each of our three girls, which we will share with you in an upcoming post this week. Thanks for reading through this lengthy one — but wasn’t every word part of a big, beaming smile on your face now?

* More photos from AfricAid on Facebook *

Comments (2)

By Tammy Tibbetts, July 8, 2010 8:08 am

Grace Lyimo -- she's excited to "meet" her co-sponsors from GIRLS WHO ROCK. Leave a message! p.s. her bday is July 28th!

GIRLS WHO ROCK exceeded our expectations as a benefit for She’s the First — we not only raised enough to sponsor Elizabeth David in AfricAid’s Kisa Project, but also Happiness Monyo and Grace Lyimo, who we are proud to introduce you to now! Remember that the wonderful thing about hosting GIRLS WHO ROCK during Internet Week New York was that this sponsorship program is truly Internet-infused. We will receive emails from the girls monthly, and by posting their letters to She’s the First, we enable you to leave comments, which we then forward to them. Please ask questions and share encouragement!

I am very happy to have you, really it so amazing!
I am Grace Lyimo, a student of Arusha Secondary School, form five, taking history, geography and economics. I like singing, dancing, charting, and making new friends who we can share ideas. Really I am very happy to have you and may I pleas know your name? I just know only two of you, who are Ashley and Kat DeLuna. I do like the song of Kat DeLuna very much so I fell like fly to know that she is one among you. Hope we will going to know much about each other. I like you photo very much please send more to us. I have to sign out hope we will communicate later.

[Editor's Note: Minor spelling and grammar edits made. But Grace's words in tact!]