How ASYV Girls Are Rising Up
Esther serves as MC during our weekly Village Time talent show attended by the entire student body.
Girl Rising
In early June, Enrichment Year (first-year) student Mukakamanzi Esther became the first student from the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) to qualify as a finalist in the Rise program, a prestigious international scholarship competition offering its Global Winners up to $500,000 in lifetime benefits. In her application, Esther discussed her desire to empower girls across Rwanda to envision themselves as people who can shape the nation. To accomplish this, Esther plans to create a series of videos profiling women leaders that can be shared online and on apps like TikTok. As a finalist, Esther has qualified to attend a University of Chicago virtual leadership summit taking place this July. We asked her to comment on her accomplishment.
What inspired this project?
I started thinking about gender equality during primary school when I saw the way girls were treated in their families and in my family. Most students do not learn about influential women in school. I hope educating girls about these women will encourage the girls to stand up for themselves, because if they don’t, no one else can, or will, do it for them.
How does it feel to be a finalist?
Many of my friends in the Village applied to Rise, so before submitting, we did a peer review for each other. When I told them my project was about gender inequality in Rwanda, one of my friends told me that was not a good idea because the judge could be a man and not like the idea. But I realized advocating for girls' empowerment is what I like to do, and qualifying as a finalist makes me believe that no matter what I’m passing through, no matter where I’m from, no matter how hard things have been, my dreams are valid.
Before developing her plan to empower girls nationwide, Esther hosted conversations about gender with groups of Village girls, including Ruth Kayatesi, her sister in the Claudette Colvin Family, who is featured below. You can watch a video of one of these conversations in Esther’s new post on Bwira News, our student blog.
Passing the Torch
Like many ASYV girls, Esther was inspired by the students who came before her, including Deborah Meillah, ASYV Class of 2022. Deborah started her own initiative to empower girls called Belle, which Esther joined shortly after arriving in the Village. Deborah also serves as a leader on the planning committee for the 2022 Lift Her Up gender equity camp, which will take place this August in the Village and include girls from schools nationwide. Lift Her Up, in turn, was founded by Peace Grace Muhizi, ASYV Class of 2013. In honor of Esther’s accomplishment and this legacy of our female student leaders passing the torch, we are featuring three projects spearheaded by current or former Village students, including Deborah. These young women inspire not only each other, but thousands more girls both inside and outside our gates.
RUTH KAYATESI, ASYV Class of 2025
“In my former school, they used to tell the boys that they are more capable than the girls, and I met with challenges when I tried to convince my guardians about gender equality. That is why I am working to start a program at ASYV where boys’ student families and girls’ student families will meet at least two times a month to share their dreams and weaknesses, and stories of how they solve the obstacles they meet each day. This will provide a platform for both girls and boys to understand that they are not enemies but allies ready to join hands to achieve their biggest dreams and goals in life.”
DEBORAH MEILLAH, ASYV Class of 2022
“Growing up, I had to be what people told me I was. If people told me I was lazy, I had to go on being lazy. At ASYV, I got the chance to go through therapy and healing sessions. This allowed me to discover the true person in me and that that person is more capable than anyone knew. I started an organization called Belle to help other girls who have not had the chance to come to ASYV have this experience. Belle will go into schools throughout Rwanda and have three-day workshops to help girls learn that beyond their vulnerability and the names that society calls them, there is a beautiful and powerful person.”
RUTH BAHALI, ASYV Class of 2018, 2022 Miss Rwanda Sexual and Reproductive Health
“Before I arrived at ASYV, I was taught that, as a girl from a family with no parents, I was not to speak my mind. At ASYV, I was in Lift Her Up and also Girl Up. They opened up my eyes. We have a very big problem with teen pregnancy in Rwanda. Now, I am using my platform through Miss Rwanda to enhance a project I started. We will go into secondary schools throughout the country and use performing arts to help students talk about sexual and reproductive health and self-confidence. When you are free to be creative, it opens your mind and helps you to discover what you really want and make decisions for yourself.”