What does the world expect from a girl?

 March 09, 2018

Sometimes a small voice can have a big impact.

Jediva is a teenage girl living in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. At just 15 years old, Jediva was kidnapped and taken to Kenya as a man's '19-year-old wife'. Terrified to even eat or speak out, she lived the life of a slave to her captor and his sister, with the daily threat of being killed if anyone found out who she really was.

In a new moving spoken word film from the Vodafone Foundation, Jediva shares an emotional poem she crafted about the hardship she knows as a refugee girl.

A powerful and moving poem

Jediva’s powerful and moving poem, titled What does this world really expect from a girl child? addresses her community’s view of girls’ education, expectations of girls’ appearance and the views of some members of her community that girls “were born to be married and do their kitchen work”.

“If girls would have access to education, the world would shine just like success. Everybody may respect girls, even men. All of them may respect girls,” said Jediva. “Education is key. It’s everything in my life”.
 

Seeking an education, Jediva sold her food rations to buy books. Severely beaten by her captor she was told she would "die here as a dog". 

Jediva finally escaped to a police station, and a dental investigation revealed she was only 15, and not the age that her captor claimed she was. Consequentially, Jediva was finally taken to a safe haven. 

Jediva now attends school and lives in a refugee camp in Kenya. She is educated using the Vodafone Foundation's tablet-based teaching programme. And, for the very first time in her life, Jediva could access the internet - and, before anything else, she chose to search for a video of an active volcano, something she had never seen before. 

59 million children not attending school

UNESCO research from 2013 found that a startling 59 million children aged 6 to 11 were out of school, with 30 million of those children living in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Education is critical for lifting people out of poverty and hardship. It unlocks potential and changes the world for them and their families. However, when girls don’t receive a decent education they have little chance of gaining employment a job as an adult. 

Educating girls lifts future generations of children out of poverty but without education, girls' participation in society is limited. 

Ultimately, Vodafone is seeking to provide millions of young people in Vodafone African markets with free access to online learning materials.

Combining giving and technology to make a difference in the world

Vodafone seeks to combine charitable giving and technology to make a positive difference in the world. Globally, the Vodafone Foundation supports projects that are focused on delivering public benefit through the application of technology across the areas of health, education and disaster relief. The Foundation invests in the communities in which Vodafone operates and is at the centre of a network of global and local social investment programmes. 

This tremendous support provides a better chance in life. Connectivity drives change.