Nana Aba Duncan

During the tour I’ll be blogging.  Plan Canada has asked me to document our experience traveling across Ontario with the Girls Rights presentation tour.  I’ve been rehearsing with Eternia and Masia One — two female emcees who will be performing during our show.  I’m excited to be working with them.  We’re starting this Friday at a school in Brampton.  And I must mention the level-headed professionalism of Tamara Dawit, the talented woman behind the tour and executive director of The 411 Initiative For Change.  Without her, none of this would be.

When I lived in Ghana five years ago I met a lot of people.  I was working as a reporter through a charitable organization based in Toronto.  Their focus was on human rights issues, so I covered a lot of different stories.  It was hard to meet people affected by female genital mutilation, prostitution, corruption and poverty, especially since I was doing it in the country in which I was born.

But one of the toughest things to see was how it affected kids.

More than that, it was easy to see the most affected were girls.  In female genital cutting, girls are having parts of their vaginas cut and sewn as part of misguided cultural views.  In prostitution, girls have sex to get food and shelter.  In poverty, girls and females in general are hardest hit because they do most of the work in and around the home.

Men and boys are poor too of course.  But because of the major role of women in the home it is imperative they are supported.  It’s unfortunate that in many developing countries women are simply regarded as second class.

When we support these girls, these vulnerable women, we help grow communities.

In parts of South Africa, microfinance institutions (like The Townships Project) lend women money in a structured program to help them start and grow businesses.  There are many programs around the world started by country natives and international organizations like MFIs.

Those are the kinds of efforts I can get behind.

I’m hosting the Girls Rights program with the 411 Initiative for Change, which is supported by Plan Canada (once Foster Parents Plan).  I’ll be going to about 30 schools in Ontario to talk to girls about rights issues in developing countries like Sudan, Columbia and Haiti.  MTV also supports the program and to me that is encouraging.  It means the people who watch Jay-Z, Drake and Rih Rih aren’t afraid to get behind something they can’t really understand.

Truth is, even I can’t understand it.  And I reported on the stuff!

What I think we can all understand is our imaginations, and the limits of our imaginations.  When we learn of something as atrocious as child trafficking - selling kids to work - we think, “I can’t even IMAGINE what that would be like.”  And because we can’t imagine how bad something might be, we just know it’s terrible.  When something is beyond the imagination we understand how heavy it is, good or bad.

In the case of unsupported girls in developing countries, it’s just bad.  Mostly bad.  And for my part, the little good I can do is help girls in Canada between 12 and 16 know that girls their age in developing countries are just like them.  They just want to hang out with each other, listen to music, dance, and kiss someone they like.

Unfortunately sometimes all that has to be ignored.  Sometimes you have to be a woman, to feed your four sisters and brothers.  Sometimes you have to be a woman, to have sex with the drug lord because it means you’ll eat.

I can’t imagine being that kind of woman, and the strength it takes.  But I can be the kind of woman who does what she can to help.

If you want to help, you can start by just watching a video.  It’s part of Plan Canada’s Because I Am A Girl Campaign.  Click here.

**I also voiced the end of this ad.

I was voicing Plan Canada’s podcasts, and now I edit and produce them.  This is the first one, about malaria in Sierra Leone.  The next podcast will be about the Girls Rights program, the one I’m hosting with the 411 Initiative for Change.

 

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