Success Stories from Girls in Africa Acting as Change Agents

It Takes a Child to Raise a Village — “my” latest book about bottoms-up, grass-roots innovation, is now available for purchase and sharing. You and your kids will read the first-hand, inspiring stories about how school girls in rural Uganda are teaching their families how to improve their living conditions and increase their incomes.  

You’ll see their world through their own eyes and their colorful illustrations. Safira, Lydia, Ruth, Grace, Judith, Atwooki, Stellah, Ceophus, Zam, Faridah, Joyce, Grace, Sylvia, Natasha, Immaculate, Anna Mary, Rosemary, Sarah, Doreen, Mary Joyce, Hilda, Rebecca, Hannah, Rebecca, Ruth, Jane, Gertrude, Dinnah, and Noeline write about their “Back Home” projects. They show you how they taught their parents, their brothers and sisters, and their communities how to improve sanitation and nutrition, reduce domestic violence, and to earn more money!

By the time each of these girls graduates from the URDT Girls’ School, their families’ homes have become role model farms in their communities, and, these girls and their parents have become community leaders and respected change agents!

What’s behind the incredible success of this rural boarding school is the brilliant structure that makes it “The Path of Least Resistance” for families and villages to systemically improve their living conditions, empowered by their daughters—young women who would normally be marginalized in their culture.

How has this grass roots innovation taken place, rippled out from a single girls school, and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in western Uganda? Let the girls themselves tell you and show you how it’s done!

The bound, printed soft cover version of this 112-page colorful picture book is available for sale for $100. $75 of that is a charitable donation which goes directly to URDT Girls School through the African Food and Peace Foundation, which is a registered U.S. nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose sole purpose is to support URDT and the African Rural University for Women. You will receive a receipt for the $75 contribution.

If you prefer to download the PDF from our Web site to read online or to print yourself, it’s available for $25. Those proceeds will also go directly to the URDT Girls School through AFPF, and you’ll receive a receipt for your donation.

This is a great book to use for a book club, a scout troop, or a class of school children. If you’d like to make arrangements for an affordable group purchase that will still support the URDT Girls School in Uganda, please contact me directly at [email protected].

Now, for a preview—watch Safira Nyesige tell her story. I had the honor of participating in the capture of this home visit and I was the one off camera doing the interviews. During the middle of our filming, it began to rain hard, so Safira’s mom, Mauda Habasa, invited us into her home and I was able to talk with her in more detail. Not only has Safira helped her family become among the top producing farmers in the district, her mom has been an active participant in a grass roots participatory research project in Land Rights. (You can read more about the Land Rights project here.) All of this was catalyzed by Safira’s initiative at the age of 13 when she convinced her parents to let her apply for the URDT Girls School!