Texas A&M University helps evaluate the impact of the Girl Power Project® on girls in impoverished communities in Uganda.
Just Like My Child Foundation (JLMC) partners with Texas A&M (TAMU) to explore what happens in a rural community when girls are empowered to act independently and make their own free choices — especially in an impoverished area where women and girls are often considered inferior and powerless.
In the developing world, adolescence is the most vulnerable juncture of life for a girl living in poverty. The odds are stacked against her as she faces high risks of early marriage, pregnancy, sexual violence, and disease — or — she can strengthen her ability to successfully navigate these pitfalls by gaining knowledge, life skills, confidence, and healthy attitudes.
Born from a mother’s love for her child, and the firm belief in the unreasonable, JLMC is committed to empowering vulnerable adolescent girls to beat the odds.
After 12 years of working together with communities to address poverty and injustice in central Uganda, and in response to the challenges that girls face, JLMC developed the Girl Power Project® (GPP) to empower adolescent girls with the tools they need to stay in school and protect themselves from forced child marriage, early pregnancy, and disease.
This summer, four post-graduate students from the Bush School of Government & Public Service, and two faculty members from TAMU’s Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications, will travel to Luwero, Uganda to conduct help JLMC measure the effects of the GPP on girls and their communities.
The study will seek to answer whether or not engaging adults and boys in the GPP contributes to improved conditions for a girl to build positive relations with others in her community. This investigation will focus on the resulting relations that a girl has both within her home and beyond — with her neighbors, school teachers, local police/authorities, adult role models, and other members in her community.
This exciting new partnership between JLMC and TAMU will test JLMC’s theory of change that empowering girls on an individual level will result in attitude and behavioral shifts at the community level. JLMC believes these shifts can result in a community where empowered girls are encouraged, supported, and protected to reach their full potential.
Follow JLMC on Instagram @justlikemychild and Facebook @justlikemychildfoundation for more updates on the progress of this study, which begins in June.
About Just Like My Child Foundation: Since its founding in 2006, Just Like My Child Foundation has developed deep partnerships with rural communities in Africa to deliver sustainable programs that address health care, education, microenterprise, social justice, and women/girls’ empowerment. Through that work, JLMC organically came to understand that focusing on vulnerable adolescent girls is a powerful approach to disrupting the cycle of poverty. Today, Just Like My Child Foundation is focused on its mission to empower vulnerable adolescent girls by enabling them to create healthy, self-sustaining families who prosper without further aid. Learn more about their quest to transform the world, one girl at a time, at www.JustLikeMyChild.org
