Girls Inc. of Carpinteria: Building global girls' communities

Building Global Girls' Communities
Girls Inc. connects girls to their peers in Afghanistan

Long before the United States went to war with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, girls from the Girls Inc. member organization in Carpinteria, California were taking their own personal stand against the oppression of Afghan women. Through an innovative research and communication project, the girls developed a correspondence with young female Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, and learned about the stark differences – and surprising similarities – in their lives and experiences.

The project began in 1999, when an issue of National Geographic with a cover story about Afghan women and the Taliban was circulating around the affiliate. “The girls were very moved by what they read and saw in the pictures,” says Asa Olssen, Director of Culture and Arts for Girls Inc. of Carpinteria. “The plight of their peers, who were forbidden to attend school and forced to flee with their parents, touched and angered them. The project just took off from there.”

What started as an old-fashioned “pen pal” exchange grew steadily into a multi-dimensional cultural initiative that took on new meaning after the events of September 11th – and more recently led to a pitch before network executives to promote a teleplay about an Afghan girl.

“After we read the magazine, we went onto the Internet to get more information,” recalls Saga Beedy, 12, a seventh grader at Carpinteria Middle School who was nine when the project began. “We found a book about a girl named Raula, whose father wanted her to go to school and get an education, even though the Taliban wouldn't allow it. He enrolled her in an underground school, and we got the idea of doing a play about her. Once we started writing it, we wanted to contact girls in Raula's situation, and find out if we could help them.”

"I felt like a feminist for the very first time."
--Saga Beedy, pen pal participant

With Olssen's help, the girls wrote a letter to an organization in Islamabad, Pakistan working with Afghan refugees. It was answered with more than a dozen letters from Afghan girls, photographs, and samples of the body- and face-disguising burkas they were required to wear before becoming refugees.

“We read the letters aloud and passed them around,” says Saga. “Then we talked about how we felt, and how we'd feel if we were in their place. We were very sad and angry. For myself, I felt like a feminist for the very first time. That was three years ago, and those feelings have only grown stronger.”

Each of the twelve girls participating in the group picked the name of a girl to correspond with, and set about writing letters. Aute Porter, 10, a fifth grade student who emigrated to Carpinteria from Haiti, addressed her letter to an 8-year old girl named Sima.

“I told her that I prayed for her, and I knew what it was like to be far from home, and not to give up,” Aute remembers. “She wrote back to tell me about the refugee school, how she hoped to return to her country one day, and to ask us not to forget her and not stop writing her.”

The exchange of letters continued, fueled by the Afghan girls' impressive command of English and their eagerness to connect with the outside world. The project took on new urgency – and new meaning – when the Taliban were linked to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

“Those events brought the issue of discrimination right to the girls' backyard,” said Olssen. “Carpinteria has a sizable Pakistani population, and the girls saw people of Middle Eastern descent suddenly become suspect and marginalized.”

The girls responded by writing a new play, about a girl living in America, whose parents are killed at the World Trade Center, who then moves to Afghanistan to live with her grandmother. Their enthusiasm about the piece reached planners of the Girls Inc. Celebration Luncheon in Los Angeles last November, who invited the girls to participate in a “pitch” meeting with television network executives organized to coincide with the event.

“We said they should pay more attention to girls like the ones we're writing to,” said Aute. “We all need to know about each other and what it's like in places like Afghanistan. That's the only way we can bring an end to the terrible things that happened to girls and women over there.”

With most of the Afghan girls having returned home, the letters being exchanged with girls in Carpinteria have turned to the consequences of war, and to the hope that life in Afghanistan will be better for women now that the Taliban are out of power.

“I am inspired by what I've learned from my Afghan friend,” says Saga. “I want to use her example to fight injustice here at home. Even if I never get to meet her, she's become part of my life. And I hope I've become part of hers.”