If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s how connected we all are. Every decision we make affects other people, directly or indirectly.
Similarly, every purchase we make is part of a much bigger picture. Invisible supply chains stretch far back from each product we take home, telling a story that we’re now a part of. What we choose to purchase is important, because it’s one tangible way we have influence on the world — we have a responsibility to choose wisely.
When you give a Gift of Hope, you set a whole chain of events into motion, activating people and projects in different parts of the world. To really understand how it all works, you need to go behind the scenes.
So, let’s take a journey together, from your decision to give a Gift of Hope to the impact your gift can have on a girl’s life. And the best part? You’ll get to hear directly from girls participating in a project that benefits from Gifts of Hope like yours!
The perfect gift
Let’s say you’ve decided to give a Gift of Hope to make change for girls’ rights. Now, you just have to choose the right gift. You take our Gifts of Hope recommendation quiz to help narrow it down and it suggests school kits, a gift that provides essential supplies to help children excel in the classroom.
[Read: 5 gifts under $50 to support girls and their families]
You like the idea of giving a gift related to girls’ education, so you browse through similar gifts, like training for teachers and school fees for a girl, until another one catches your eye: a dormitory bed for a teenage girl in Zimbabwe. You see that your gift of a bed and linens will allow a girl to sleep peacefully, knowing that she has what she needs to safely get an education and make her dreams a reality.
You choose your gift and make your donation. You decide to make the gift in honor of someone special in your life — so, you select an e-card to let your loved one know you’ve purchased a Gift of Hope in their name. The whole process just takes a few minutes. But for your Gift of Hope, the journey has just begun.
A long road home
Your order is off to our friends in Zimbabwe, where they have carefully sourced bedframes, mattresses and linens. Your gift will be delivered — along with similar items — to a remote community in the southern corner of Zimbabwe, where Plan staff like Pamela Chinembiri, project manager for The Graduation Project, eagerly await its arrival.
The Graduation Project, part of Plan’s We Are the Girls campaign, supports girls’ education by providing a safe place where they can live and study.
“This project really speaks to ensuring that girls stay in school,” Pamela explains.
In Zimbabwe, many adolescent girls walk up to seven miles every day to go to school. Along the way, they endure sexual harassment, and sometimes the harassment escalates into something worse.
As a result, some resort to “bush boarding,” leaving their homes to stay in empty office spaces or storage sheds that are closer to school during the week. But living in such dangerous spaces during their teenage years means that girls don’t have critical adult supervision, either to keep them safe or to provide mentorship and advice.
The Graduation Project is working with girls to construct safe and inclusive dormitories, so they can stay enrolled in school and build their futures. The dormitories are designed in part by the girls themselves, using Plan’s unique GirlEngage approach, which involves girls in every step of the project from design to implementation to evaluation.
“We have a saying in Zimbabwe that goes, ‘Only the wearer of the shoe knows where it pinches,’” Plan Zimbabwe Country Director Angela Muriithi says. “Girls themselves know the problems they face and are best placed to create sustainable solutions that reflect their priorities, needs and vision.”
[Read: Q&A with Plan Zimbabwe Country Director, Angela Muriithi]
A dream come true
Your gift has arrived at its new home, a dormitory building surrounded by a fence, which the girls in The Graduation Project specifically requested for additional security. A world away from where you sat when you selected it, your gift is about to create real change for a girl and her community.
Imagine the joy and relief on a girl’s face when she steps into her very own room for the first time. She sees her bed, made up nicely with fresh linens, next to a small desk and chair where she can study each night. She is finally able to exhale, knowing that her hard work and determination have led her to this place. She refused to give up on her dreams, despite all the barriers that were blocking her path. Now, she doesn’t have to choose between her education and her safety.
Here’s what one program participant had to say about how The Graduation Project changed her life:
“At some point, I thought of dropping out of school because I couldn’t bear the distance. Girls were also bullied on their way to and from school. Some of my friends dropped out of school because they couldn’t bear the pressure. The project came to my rescue in 2020 when I was selected as one of the beneficiaries … In fact, the comfort we find in the hostel is not found anywhere else — even in our homes. We now have all the time to read, and our walking distance was reduced to zero.” — Ashley, 16
Are you ready to actually see the impact that a Gift of Hope like this can have on a girl’s life? Lorraine, a participant of The Graduation Project, is excited to take you on a tour of her home!
Every day, we have the power to do something great. It takes just one gift — one person like you — to build a better world. Your Gifts of Hope are the building blocks that girl leaders like Ashley and Lorraine will stand on to uplift their communities and create the better world we know is possible. Will you invest in their futures today?
