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Shine
One Thousand Hours of
Empowerment for
Children in Pakistan
About
Shine is a pilot project we have launched in our village in Pakistan to boost development by conducting workshops and activities with the children there that are based on The World With MNR's three focus areas: Gender Equality, Climate Justice and Inclusivity. By using a variety of workshops and lessons, we will be working with the girls in our village and supporting their journeys through school and into adulthood. The curriculum we are using and the activities we do will be evolving based on new research we conduct, and on the needs of the community. Our aim is to begin with reaching our target of one thousand hours of empowerment through our workshops with the girls, and then extending this target further. We will be sharing our experiences, and what the girls experienced on this page, and through storytelling across our social media.
GENDER EQUALITY
Workshops designed for girl empowerment through informing them of their rights, completing a series of activities on violence prevention, how to maintain one's hygiene, and how to develop courage when pursuing one's dreams and careers. Workshops will include hands-on activities and skills development, as well as confidence and soft skill development.
CLIMATE JUSTICE
Workshops designed to inform, teach and provide the tools for girls to take ownership of their community's sustainable future. Activities include tree-planting, garbage cleanups, and environmental stewardship lessons that can be emulated throughout different levels of the community.
INCLUSIVITY
Workshops designed to developing positive community environments, teaching the importance of ending bullying, creating team-building opportunities through sports, and celebrating diversity through personal art projects.
GENDER EQUALITY
Ending Gender-Based Violence
In January, 2018, the world's social media exploded with sorrow and grief over the rape and murder of 7-year-old Zainab Ansari in Kasur, Pakistan. Zainab is not the first victim of a crime like this. Not only is the rape and murder of women and girls common around the world, six cases of other girls, just like Zainab, living on the same street as her, have had this happen to them. When the two of us read this story, we were filled with grief. We felt helpless, and did not know what to do. What had the world come to? What can we do to help? We wanted to come up with a solution that would prevent cases like this from happening in the future. That's when the Shine Toolkit came in.
Power Posing
We begin each workshop with a series of icebreakers and activities for the girls to become familiar with us and to get used to the environment, like Power Posing and Broken Telephone.
Performances
Girls who want to share their talents with the rest of the group have the chance to perform songs, poems, or plays they have prepared with the rest of the group to foster creativity.
Games
We share games we have learned, and get girls to lead us in playing their favourite games. This develops leadership skills and confidence. This is also good for breaks between lessons.
Curriculum
Based on lesson plans, toolkits and other prepared curricula items, we follow along to achieve learning goals. They have interactive components like role play incorporated within them.
CLIMATE JUSTICE
Environmental
Stewardship
We know how important it is for everyone to play their part in protecting our planet. For this reason, one of the major focuses of our workshops is environmental stewardship and protection. We teach girls about the importance of keeping their environment clean, picking up trash, and planting trees. We also teach them about best practises in taking care of wildlife in our community, whether this is plants or animals. The goal of these workshops is to improve the environmental sustainability within the community, and inspire the next generation of leaders to be responsible citizens of our planet.
Litter Picking
One of the main topics of discussion in these workshops is the importance of picking up litter in the streets and ensuring that the environment we live in is clean, tidy, hygienic and sanitary.
Tree Planting
We plant trees while discussing the value of trees for our natural environment and how planting trees can keep our air clean and healthy. We also discuss how to maintain the trees we plant.
Excursions
We take excursions to different parts of the community, like riding a cart through a road that shows all the farm land, and hold our workshops outdoors so girls can appreciate our environment more.
Curriculum
Based on lesson plans, toolkits and other prepared curricula items, we follow along to achieve learning goals. They have interactive components like role play incorporated within them.
INCLUSIVITY
Celebrating Diversity
One of the strongest bonds that we can help create, are those between children. As the next generation who will ultimately decide the future of our village and help it prosper, these children need to be in a strong sense of community and fellowship with each other. We designed a series of workshops that celebrate diversity, and support the children's bonds as friends and reliable team members among each other as well.
Team Building
By playing games focused on team-building and cooperation, we help foster bonds between children in the community (both girls and boys) and encourage them to support each other.
Crafts
We celebrate diversity by giving everyone craft opportunities. Some examples of the crafts are friendship bracelets of different colours. The bracelets celebrate everyone's unique traits.
Excursions
Through sports like cricket, we teach children to become better team players, and the importance of different roles that we all play when trying to achieve a goal, like winning a game.
Curriculum
Based on lesson plans, toolkits and other prepared curricula items, we follow along to achieve learning goals. They have interactive components like role play incorporated within them.