By Carina Kaplan
On May 15, 2015 the Kposowa Foundation in conjunction with Oakwood School’s Girls Learn International (GLI) chapter, put on an event entitled “Bump Up Bumpe” to raise money and awareness for the Bumpe High School in Sierra Leone.
On May 15, 2015 the Kposowa Foundation in conjunction with Oakwood School’s Girls Learn International (GLI) chapter, put on an event entitled “Bump Up Bumpe” to raise money and awareness for the Bumpe High School in Sierra Leone.
GLI is an international organization under the Feminist Majority Foundation that helps spread awareness about women and girls’ issues. Each GLI chapter raises money and communicates with a partner school, and Oakwood’s partner school is the Bumpe High School in Sierra Leone, Africa. In the wake of the Ebola crisis, the Bumpe School was in need of aid kits and school supplies. Girl students were particularly impacted. Families tend to send their boy children to school first, while girls became caretakers. In addition, many girls were married and became pregnant during the prolonged period of time that the Bumpe School was shut down due to the Ebola outbreak. The Oakwood School GLI chapter committed itself to raising sufficient funds for the Bumpe students, including scholarship money for girl students.
The event took place at one of our chapter members home. At the event, there was food including cupcakes with inspiring women on them, a raffle for fun gift baskets, a yoga class, an African drum circle, and we screened the short film “A Girl’s Rite,” which was made by a few Oakwood students and focuses on menstruation as a taboo in modern society.
Most importantly though,the event was centered on a panel discussion with many distinguished women in the media industry including Sam Taylor Johnson, director of Fifty Shades of Grey, Mimi Kennedy, actress in the television show Mom, Aline Mckenna, writer of many movies including Devil Wears Prada, Patricia Resnick, writer of feminist play 9 to 5, and Erica Huggins, president of Imagine Entertainment. The panelists discussed topics such as how education enabled them to succeed in an industry so often riddled by sexism and inequality, how they believe the media can be used as a tool for change, and how gender has impacted their academic and professional career.
Overall the event raised over $5000 and helped fully fund 8 girls’ education for a year. The event not only raised money for an incredibly important cause but raised awareness about the sexism and inequality that still exists in our world.
