Empower and Educate WISER girls in rural Kenya

What do you do when you start an after school club and 90 girls show up?  You roll with the enthusiasm! 

Term 2 just started at WISER and with it the annual collaboration with students from Duke University. A main project is building on our Lighting Up STEM Education project, part of No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project of the Clinton Global Initiative.  Duke sophomore Jenna Peters went to Kenya this year to build on the sustainable energy project the WISER girls have been working on for a year. The girls have learned how to design circuits and test models for turning mechanical energy (shaking, swinging, cranking) into light that allows them to study at night and walk safely in the dark. In a community without access to electricity, light is a gendered issue, and light for boys is prioritized. With this motivation 100 flashlights or lamps have been built by the girls inside discarded water bottles and old peanut butter jars.

Why did 90 girls show up for Jenna’s first club session? The girls want to improve themselves and be change agents for community. Having never met a female engineer one WISER girl loved the career path the club opened, saying “I really like the knowledge and skills engineering club is giving me because it gives me the strength and courage of being an engineer.” Another girl said, “I want to learn how I can help the problem of electricity in my community by providing a cheaper way of getting light”. A third said she is now inspired to “come up with new innovations and invent other things.’

Working with WISER girls changes you. They inspire and humble you with their drive for change. We get caught up in the details and logistics of running programs and projects, but the girls never stop dreaming of ways to use their knowledge to change their world.  They got game.