The weekend leading up to International Women’s Day on March 8th, I attended the Action for Gender Equality Summit in Addis Ababa with four of my students and my teacher counterpart from my small town of Lissana. The four-day summit, which took place from March 4th-March 7th, was hosted by Peace Corps Ethiopia’s Gender And Development (GAD) Committee and taught students how to become leaders in their communities and promote gender equality.
Over the course of four days, the students participated in activities about leadership, good decision making, gender based violence, understanding gender roles, creativity, mock policy, HIV, and sexual and reproductive health. GAD also put together a wonderful career panel of successful men and women in Ethiopian society working towards gender equality. The panel included a member of the Ethiopian national women’s soccer team, a well-known TV personality, students from the Yellow Movement, a student-led group fighting for equality at Addis Ababa University, and more.
What is more, US Ambassador to Ethiopia Patricia Haslach addressed the students in an inspiring pre-recorded welcome statement at the beginning of the summit (she couldn’t make it in person). In addition to congratulating and welcoming them, she charged them with the responsibility of being leaders in their communities and changing the future of Ethiopia.
We also had US Ambassador to the African Union Susan Page, come speak and answer questions from the students. Ambassador Page was an especially great guest speaker for the students because of the experiences she relayed about growing up as an ambitious African American woman in Chicago with an interest in international politics. Though they learn about US history and slavery in school, many Ethiopian students are not actually aware of the extent to which institutional racism affects black Americans, so to hear from a woman who has been able to overcome so many obstacles to become a United States Ambassador was really eye opening for the students.
Not every session was a lecture. Most of the activities were interactive and fun, designed to show rather than tell the students about each issue. In the sexual and reproductive health session, which was segregated by sex to make the students as comfortable as possible, the girls were able to visualize the fertilization process by actually acting it out. One girl played a sperm, another played the egg coming down the fallopian tube, and a few other girls represented the vaginal and cervical openings. Though they were shy at first, the girls ended up having a lot of fun with the activity. Instead of just listening to a boring lecture on how it all works, they absorbed the information by acting it out.
Another great session focused on mock policy. The students worked in groups, each focusing on a different issue related to gender equality that Ethiopia is currently facing. They were given background information on the issue and had to come up with possible policy solutions to address the topic. They had 30 minutes to prepare before presenting their issue and solutions to the rest of the group. Some of the topics covered were female genital mutilation, early marriage, home births, and HIV.
My personal favorite session was called Walk a Kilometer in Her Shoes. The aim of the session is to show boys just how much work women do everyday that prevents them from being able to study, have a job outside of the home, or even go to school. This is how it worked: the boys split into two equal teams. Every boy on each team had to complete certain tasks that women have to do everyday, one after the other. First, the boys had to put on a woman’s dress and extremely uncomfortable shoes and tie a soccer ball—representing a baby—to their backs with a scarf. If at any point they dropped the ball—i.e. killed their baby—they had to stop, go back to where the ball fell, and put it back on. Next they had to each wash an item of clothing by hand. At the third station, they had to simulate breast-feeding for ten seconds before rearranging the “baby” and sprinting off to the next station. Here, they had to chop one tomato, one onion, and peel a potato to a judge’s satisfaction. Last but not least, they had to carry a bucket full of water all the way back to the beginning of the course without spilling any. But wait! To make it more fun and exciting, we made it a race between the two teams. Not only did the boys have to do all this work, but they had to do it as quickly as possible so the next member of their team could go. The first team to have everyone successfully complete the tasks won. And the girls? They got to sit on the sidelines and cheer the boys along, giving them tips as they went. But they were not allowed to lift a finger to help. Truly a role reversal.
The kids absolutely loved this activity, and in the discussion that followed, many boys admitted that they hadn’t realized how hard women’s work is. Though they only had to do it for a couple of minutes, women do this work every single day from the time they are small children until old age. Together, the boys and girls came up with ways the boys could support the girls in their work, and how the girls can encourage and teach the boys to help out with chores.
Throughout the summit, I was so proud and inspired to see my students grow and come out of their shells. When we arrived in Addis, my two girls were completely silent, only whispering to each other. By the end, they were singing at the top of their lungs with their new friends, asking and answering questions, and even taking leadership roles in their groups. I also watched as for the first time male and female students really listened to each other and communicated their needs, fears, and ideas.
We finished off the weekend by participating in Ethiopia’s Women First 5k, a road race held in Addis to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. The female Peace Corps Volunteers and campers ran the race with 10 thousand other women, while the boys made awesome supportive posters and cheered us on from the sidelines. I am proud to say that both of my students came in the first tier of finishers, earning orange medals!
As soon as we got on the bus to come back home, my students began inundating me with ideas of how they want to teach others what they learned at the summit by creating a gender club, performing dramas, reciting poems, and doing other activities at the high school. To my delight, the boys are just as eager as the girls are to promote gender equality. This simple fact is enough for me to know that the summit was a success.