We’re officially underway with the first phase of our project, which is dedicated to learning about each other and our values and aspirations. We had our first meeting since returning from summer holiday just last week. During the session we did various activities geared toward understanding the difference between intrinsic and monetary values. We each made our own “values poster” {see pictures below} where we listed what was valuable to us. Common themes were friendship, fairness, kindness, and family. We also went through envelopes of prewritten values and aspirations such as “being successful in sports” and “having a dependable friend” and ranked them from most important to least important. These were useful exercises that helped us to reflect on what was important in our own lives, which can be used to help guide and understand our aspirations. This week we are going to continue with the aspirations focus by filling out some aspiration surveys and discussing with one another. The rest of the month is dedicated to self-awareness and life skills before we move on to the next phases, which have a technology focus and give the young women opportunities to be creative with digital technology by creating videos with their smartphones. We’re currently seeking more young women to join the team and are actively reaching out to our wider networks to encourage more participants.

Identifying values in our lives

Ideas of life skills and topics to cover in phase one