Plan Youth at the InterAction Forum

Posted by Dounia Bredes, Youth Outreach and Marketing Coordinator for Plan International USA

Just last week, I had the honor of hosting two young people from El Salvador as they participated in the InterAction Forum, a conference of international development organizations. Ana and Eduardo were chosen to represent Plan’s work because of their leadership, public speaking skills, and passion for youth empowerment. I was chosen to host them because I work on the Youth Engagement team here at Plan International USA. Anything to do with youth engagement--anytime, anywhere--involves me and my team. (Did I mention that I love my job?)



On the second day of Forum, in front of a large room filled with development professionals, three young women took the stage--one from Egypt, one from Afghanistan, and Ana from El Salvador. They were the young panelists invited to speak about "Youth, Gender, and Political Change" in their home countries.

Adventures in Cultural Cooking

Posted by Lisa Lozeau, Senior Marketing Manager

Last weekend I attempted to make a traditional meat stew from Sierra Leone. If you are hosting a House Party for us, you've probably seen this recipe so if you've tried it, let us know how yours came out!

The recipe seemed pretty simple: beef, garden eggs (aka eggplant), onion, tomato and some seasoning.

You start by boiling the beef in water and then adding six – yes six – eggplants. Keep an eye on the beef. To my surprise it was prone to boiling over. While the beef was boiling I cubed the eggplant. I’m not sure what size or kind of eggplant they use in Sierra Leone, but I could only fit 3-4 of the purple kind in my soup pot. I Googled “garden eggs” and there are small white eggplant that do look like eggs so maybe the recipe meant six of those.

Will the world answer West Africa's call for help?

Posted by Dualta Roughneen, Plan Ireland's Food Crisis Response Coordinator for the West Africa region.

With just 35% of the funds raised needed to avert a full-scale food crisis in West Africa, it’s time for the world to act.

West Africa is not a place that many people are too familiar with. People have heard of places like Liberia and Sierra Leone, primarily for negative reasons such as war and child soldiers. But how many know where Niamey is? Are there many who can pronounce Ouagadougou?

The world will soon find out. Niger and much of the Western Sahel basin, stretching from Senegal to Chad is approaching a food and nutrition crisis. Around 13 million people are already affected by food insecurity and more than 1 million children under 5 years are expected to suffer from moderate acute malnutrition.

Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and the Gambia have declared a crisis and called for international assistance.

Working to exit

Posted by Tessie San Martin - Plan International USA CEO/President

This week I am in the Dominican Republic, where I lived and worked in the late 80s. A lot has changed, much very positive. Per capita income is over $3,500 a year, literacy rates among youth are over 95% and well of 90% of communities, urban and rural, have access to safe water.

Plan International is celebrating its 25th anniversary in the Dominican Republic this year. While much progress has been made in the last quarter century, there are persistent pockets of poverty, primarily in the southwest of the country. And the recent influx of Haitians across the border after the earthquake in that neighboring country has taxed already overburdened social services in that region to a breaking point. So there is no question that much work remains to be done. But it doesn't need to all be done by Plan. Our approach in the DR is very specifically designed to enable Plan to exit. The Dominican Republic illustrates well how Plan is adapting its approach as the country develops.

Don't subject your girls to the knife

Posted by Dona Tchamo, a 67-year-old mother from Guinea-Bissau, who used to carry out female genital mutilation (FGM) on young girls. Today she explains what made her stop and why she now works with Plan to advocate against the practice.

For many years, I practiced female genital mutilation on girls. Sometimes, I would travel far from my village to perform ceremonies on girls, as far away as Senegal or Mauritania. FGM can mean the partial or total removal of all external genitalia as part of the process towards womanhood.

Being subjected to the knife is viewed as proper; a good tradition and a rite of passage and acceptance by many communities. I am Muslim, and for many years this practice was forced upon Muslim women. But now many see it as part of their tradition and culture; they accept it, proudly subjecting their young daughters to the knife.

Plan's "So, What About Boys?" report launched at USAID

Posted by Su Balasubramanian, Plan International USA's Because I am a Girl Manager

Each year Plan International publishes its Because I am a Girl report on the state of the world’s girls. The 2011 report, "So, What About Boys?", which explores the integral role that men and boys must play as allies and agents for social change, continues to capture the attention of partner organizations and leading donors in the international development space.

On the heels of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID’s) release of its new Gender Equality policy, the first in almost 30 years, Plan International’s "So, What About Boys?" enjoyed yet another center-stage appearance that the agency. This past Monday, March 26, Plan International USA launched the report at USAID.

15 Years...Can Change a World

Posted by Tessie San Martin - Plan International USA CEO/President


Two weeks ago I traveled to Gazipur District to see our child protection work. Gazipur district is in the central part of Bangladesh. It is just 30km or so from Dhaka the capital, and growing fast. While more and more it is becoming an extension of the country's capital, Dhaka (1 out of every 5 inhabitants in Bangladesh live in Dhaka), today it continues to be quite rural.

Plan has been in Gazipur for 15 years. Over this time, we have made a significant difference. With our encouragement, the communities where we work have created Village Development Committees (VDCs). These bring together adults from all social strata, united by their concern for the safety and health of their children. In addition, Plan has encouraged the formation of Children Organizations. The COs and VDCs take a leadership role identifying and prioritizing the village needs and developing action plans to address them.

Plan Bangladesh's inspiring 75th birthday

Posted by Tessie San Martin - Plan International USA CEO/President


Plan celebrated its 75th birthday around the world yesterday. In Bangladesh we celebrated by sponsoring the Metropolis Women's School Football Tournament. Hundreds of girls from 32 schools in Dhaka attended the kick-off game held at a major stadium. This was a big event, attended and opened by Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, State Minister of Women and Children Affairs. A thousand people were in attendance, including a large contingent from the Plan office here. If there was a bigger party in Plan, I'd be surprised.

We were actually celebrating many things, including the fact that girls are now participating in all sports, including "football" (soccer for us in the US). The fact that they can hold this event and attract media attention is a huge deal. The girls who play for the two teams that took the field for the opening game this afternoon, Viraqun Neesa Noon School and Motijhee T&T, held up their birth certificates during the starting ceremony. This was a reminder that all girls must be counted; they are second citizens no more.

I have been honored to be part of this event. And I will take great satisfaction some years from now as we see the Bangladesh Women's soccer team take an Olympic medal. Happy birthday Plan. Congratulations - you are 75 years young.

Other Invisible Children

Posted by Tessie San Martin - Plan International USA CEO/President

The words "Invisible Children" have been in the news lately. A YouTube video by an organization of the same name has gone viral, putting the spotlight on the awful plight of the many children in Northern Uganda kidnapped and abused by Joseph Kony.

Photo Credit: Paolo Black
for the Young Health Program



But I want to talk about other invisible children with whom I've spent time lately: the street kids on the Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station platform in south Delhi, India.

Plan India works with the hundreds of street children who spend a significant amount of time on one of the most crowded and busy sections of the Indian railway system (270 trains a day) - 22 locations across 8 stations that take you over 400km from Hazrat Nizamuddin to Bhopal.

The children are in the train stations for many reasons. Sometimes they are runaways. Sometimes they are sent by their families, desperate for money, to find work of any type. They end up as rag-pickers (collecting the garbage on the tracks), or selling re-filled water bottles, or shoe-shining, juggling - anything to earn a few rupees a day. In every case, they are on their own, sometimes (too often) at a heartbreakingly young age. This makes them very vulnerable.

Reflections from a former Plan-sponsored child

Posted by former Plan-sponsored child, Khady Diop

Khady, 35, from St. Louis, Senegal became involved with Plan in 1986.

When I was 6 years old, my parents opened the door to a future I could never have imagined when they signed me up to be a sponsored child with Plan. For 12 years, through my schooling, I was sponsored by a person in the Netherlands.

The sponsorship not only allowed me greater opportunity through access to education and more, but also helped my village. Many children benefited from the improvements to the school and programmes made by Plan. One of my own children is sponsored by Plan, and the others attend a school which receives support from Plan because of sponsorship.

Today, I hold a bachelor’s degree and have attended several technical trainings to collect my certificate in data management. In addition to caring for my family, I work as an assistant to the manager of a savings and credit association.

I am also the president of our community health group, which means I convene and coordinate the monthly meetings, reinforce our local health services and facilitate training. Community health groups are supported in their work to ensure that people are accessing health services and learning how to better care for their children and families by Plan.