A teen girl to follow.

Empowering women to be seen, heard and take leadership.

In 2017, our team was invited to mentor a local community who had applied for a small program grant. Each community who came with their group of representatives had to bring one woman as part of their team. This particular small community brought a teenage girl named Jamie. She had an uncommonly good grasp of English and was eager to engage in discussions and speak up. Already we could tell she was unique amongst the other women we had come in contact with.

As the years have passed, we have continue to invest in Jamie, spending lots of time in her home, attending her marriage, doing language classes, training her to translate, celebrating her newborn daughter, all towards building a deep friendship and developing this young lady into a strong voice for women in her community.

Today Jamie translates multiple prenatal classes a week, takes phones calls from dozens of people every day to direct them to services that can help them, collects data, teaches small children every morning at a refugee learning centre, and more. Even though many Rohingya find it culturally disagreeable for a woman to speak up and have leadership, and thus criticize her, start rumours, and try to drag her down, Jamie has a a strong spirit and desire to continue helping her people, no matter what the cost.