Introduction

In 2023, JRS Eastern Africa with the support of Entreculturas Spain and Light of the Girls, has worked with girls under 15 years in Eastern Africa Region (i.e., Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Uganda) to develop this set of stories and testimonies, “I Will Tell You My Story”.

The purpose of this material is to: first, conduct group counselling with girls who have suffered different kinds of violence in a child-friendly manner by sharing their own stories; second, to serve as an educational material to raise awareness among the readers outside the region who might not be aware of the episodes of violence that girls still suffer daily in this part of the world; and third, to call for the action of the readers who can, in many different ways, take an active participation in the cause of defending girls’ right to a violence-free life.

Methodology

In order to develop these testimonies, the JRS team organized five different sessions in the four countries listed above with groups of 5 to 10 girls under 15 years of age. The goal of these sessions was for the girls to share their stories of violence and rights’ violations in a friendly and conductive space.

However, how to do so without doing more harm by re-flourishing in them the trauma experienced? To do so, we had the support of an adolescent psychologist, Aliyah Shah, who helped the JRS team designing child-friendly dynamics that would invite them to share their episodes of violence, while leaving the room with a smile in their faces. And the results were very satisfactory.

By introducing different games within the dynamic, symbolism and metaphors, as well as ensuring a safe space and comfortable atmosphere for the girls, they were able to share many of their stories while avoiding refuelling their deepest traumas and harming their mental wellbeing.

During the sessions, support female staff was taking notes of the different stories shared, which later were gathered based on thematic and served to develop the six different testimonies within the “I Will Tell You My Story” collection. The stories presented in this set are not exclusive to one girl, but are a compilation of different anecdotes explained by different participants, creating then fictional but at the same time very real stories of girls in our countries of operation.

These stories are accompanied by some of the drawings that the girls in the sessions drew to illustrate what we had discussed during the sessions.

Purpose or Usage Guidelines

Our ultimate goal with this work is for educational centres to use it with their students (we recommend secondary education students, from 13 to 18 years), to raise awareness on a very predominant reality that might seem very distant in time and space to many of us, but that is not.

The English used represents the level of English of the participant girls in the sessions, therefore using a simple but comprehensive vocabulary that can be understood by youths all over the world. The stories shared are harsh since the realities explained are so too, however they have been kindly curated so its reading will not have a negative psychological impact on the youths reading them.

Each story is a short reading and each of them is focused in one different thematic to be treated with the students. These being: girls’ role at home, menstruation as a taboo, forced marriage and early pregnancy, child labour and school deprivation, domestic and sexual violence, and war and armed conflict.

We recommend treating every story in an independent manner, reading it with the students in class and then invite for a reflection and a call for action of the youths.

In this article we share the first testimony out of six testimonies that we will be sharing during the next few months.
When reading is finished we recommend using the Proposed Questions for Reflection which are shared below, and to consider using the Proposed Calls For Action also shared below.

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Testimony #1
ADID – ETHIOPIA
Nationality: Eritrean
Age: 13
Main Topic: Girls’ role at home

My name is Adid, I am 13 years old, and I am an Eritrean refugee in Ethiopia.
I was young when my family and I came to Ethiopia, but I remember some parts of the journey.

I remember we had to walk for many days to reach Ethiopia and people were fighting here and there… I remember we had to travel by night to avoid the fighters and the government troops. We even had to sometimes run whenever we heard gunshots from far away, or any othersound.
It was not a nice journey…
For that reason, every time boys fight in school, I suffer a lot. It reminds me of the war and the suffering of my family.

Nowadays, I love my home! When I am with my parents, I know I am safe, and they will take care of me. I am very grateful for having them in my life, but not everything is so good… What makes me the saddest is that boys at home are treated different than girls. And I don’t understand why!
We are 7 siblings at home, and I really enjoy it. However, when it comes to house chores, these are not divided equally… and that does not make me very happy.
Me and my other 3 sisters, we always have to wash clothes, clean the house, cook, and go fetch water. However, my brothers are always outside playing and having fun. And they are not even expected to do anything else!

I feel boys are the centre of attention in my family compared to my sisters and me.

My brothers are not treated equally than us… when the eldest ones come home in the evening and we have not finished our chores, they get very angry.
I remember one day I wanted to finish reading the book our teachers asked us to. I decided to go fetch water first, then finish my reading, and after that end swiping the floor of the house. When my eldest brother came home from work and found me reading and not swiping, he grabbed a stick from the garden and started canning me. I cried until my mother came home… At the end I had no time to read my book and my teacher got very upset with me the next day. It made me feel very sad.

Honestly, I don’t really understand why this happens… my mother says that, in our culture, boys should not work at home. But I still don’t see the reason why.

What made me the saddest of it all, was when I spoke about it with my best friend Joseline. We were at school some weeks back, and my teacher got angry at some of us because we could not finish our homework the day before. Me, I could not do so because I had to finish the dishes before I could study, and having had neighbours for dinner I had a lot to do before my homework.

When we left school, I was complaining about it with my friend, and she looked at me very seriously… she told me:

“Adid, why are you saying that? Home duties are women duties. Why would your brothers
have to do something like that?”

Hearing my very best friend saying so, made me very sad… Am I the only crazy one who thinks there is no reason for it to be this way? Don’t I have the same right as my male siblings to focus on my education and enjoy my free time?Or if we need to work at home, why should it only be the girls? If we all worked together, we could finish the chores earlier and we could all study and play and be happier!
Really… I don’t understand why it is like that. When I grow old, I will be an engineer living in London, and all my children, no matter if boys or girls, will not do any house chore apart from cleaning their room! I will provide for them so they can focus only on going to school and being good people!
That is what I dream. That is what I would have dreamed for myself…

I really like going to school! That is what will allow me to achieve my dreams! But the classes are full of pupils, we are all squished… it is always very hot in summer and makes it very difficult to focus… but I try, I really try, so I can fulfil my dreams in the future. That is the most important thing to me right now.

Also, at school we all have the same duties, and teachers don’t differentiate between girls and boys when they have to give us extra duties like swiping the classroom’s floor!

My favourite place in the world is the street between my home and the station where I take the bus to go to school.
It is full of trees and some taller buildings, and that amazes me. Also, if I am walking down that street, it means I am going to school, and that always makes me happy!
I dream that one day people like my family and Joseline, whom I love a lot, can also share my view… I am unable to understand the reason why girls should be in charge of house duties and not boys.

I dream of a day in which girls can focus on whatever the boys do. Because, as for now, in my community, it is not like this.

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Proposed Questions for Reflection

1. Did you know this kind of violence was still being suffered today by girls in other parts of the world?
2. Do you think this reality can also be found in your country? Why?
3. Which rights are being violated in this story?
4. How different in this reality compared to yours?
5. What caught your attention the most of this testimony?
6. What could governments or different agencies (NGOs, civil society movements, etc.) do to finish with this reality?

Proposed Calls For Action

1. By sharing their stories and not forgetting this reality you become an advocator for girls’ rights.
2. By volunteering in organizations that fight for girls’ right you become an advocator for this cause.
3.  By organizing school campaigns to raise awareness on the reality suffered by many girls around the world, you become an advocator for the cause of girls’ globally.
4. By organizing a fundraising activity in your school or community to support any of the different NGO’s working with girls globally, you become an advocator for their cause.
5. What else do you think you could do to become an actor of change and advocate for the right of every girl to be safe and sound?!