On #DayOfTheGirl, we look back to a story Karen, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Samoa told us in 2018. 

Karen says, “GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World and it’s a girls empowerment group. We have a national conference every year for over 200 girls for 4 days in town. My club has 32 girls, they’re ages 10-14.

I adore GLOW. Technology was a big thing for them when we started the club, so it was good to have the SolarSPELL.

I take the SolarSPELL when I do house visits. I’d see girls I’d probably never seen at school before because they never go and tell them about GLOW, and ask them if they want to be a part of it. I’d tell them they can come to the women’s village committee house and do a lot of activities, and one of them is technology. 

For the technology activity, we use the SolarSPELL. Just to see the development of these girls through the access to these resources is super meaningful to me. Unfortunately most of the kids that go to school in town or that go to secondary school are the boys, and the girls just stay home. They drop out before maybe year 5 or 6. To be able to provide these girls with educational resources, like theSolarSPELL is pretty great.”

*Interview was edited for clarity