The Girl Who Fought for Freedom and Other Stories of Courage
South Sudan –the world’s youngest nation – is a country that has been characterized for its deep patriarchal culture and harmful gender norms. In this context, Oxfam in South Sudan has, amongst others under its education programming, worked towards strengthening women's individual and collective power to end poverty and challenge inequalities. A strategy in this work has been to engage and support women-led and women rights organizations/groups (WROs) in policy work, research, mentoring and a women’s radio show.
To help build a citizenry, where women are empowered to claim their rights, one needs to start by providing narratives and role models for young girls to look up to. While there in South Sudan are strong, capable women generating change in their communities, it is still usually men who are held up as the strong leaders.
To contribute to the transformation of people’s mindsets on gender norms and gender equality, Oxfam in South Sudan launched “The Girl Who Fought for Freedom and Other Stories of Courage”, a feminist picture storybook. Oxfam in partnership with WROs worked with a young female writer, Bigoa Chuol, who collected real-life stories putting front and center strong women role models. Through illustrations and children’s book-style storytelling, the storybook shows the common struggles of South Sudanese women (like early and forced marriage) and how the women in the stories resisted. Given the diversity of South Sudan –in experience, culture, ethnicity, age and ability –this book is just the first of a series of books in South Sudan that features stories of girls and women from different regions of the country. The stories are written in a strong and assertive tone. Even with the conflict and the harmful gender norms, South Sudanese women and girls are unstoppable. They should be given equal opportunities in leadership and education to have a better hope of restoring what has been destroyed by war; to have a better chance of having just and lasting peace.
The Girl Who Fought for Freedom complements Oxfam in South Sudan’s existing advocacy work to challenge harmful gender norms and to promote women’s leadership: the team’s continuous engagement with civil society groups, women and young people, its various research (including public research report Born to be Married: Addressing child, early and forced marriage in Nyal, South Sudan), its weekly women’s radio show (Peace of Her Mind), and through a campaign promoting women leadership (Born to Lead).
The book and the stories have since been used in live storytelling/read-along sessions in schools. During the launch, a spoken word female artist read it to an audience of adolescent girls. Oxfam has also (shortly before COVID-19 broke out) worked with civil society partners and organizations like Crown the Woman (who work in schools in South Sudan) to disseminate the stories in schools. The book and the stories have also been shared with donors and affiliates.
This case story is also a story of curriculum and content that are decolonized and gender transformative. They ensure progressive and relevant technical, cognitive and social knowledge and creative skills, and deal with rights, dynamics, social norms and beliefs.
You can see and download The Girl Who Fought for Freedom and Other Stories of Courage by clicking the link.