These Outfits Will Grow On You!
In Togo, West Africa, a small tropical country sandwiched between Ghana and Benin, the high price of school uniforms in a land where poverty is endemic, can prevent girls from getting an education, as CNN reports. This is why an amazing innovation from a caring nonprofit established by a young American, Payton McGriff who wants to empower women through education, is making a real difference. This organization has created a school uniform that can grow with its wearer. This adaptable uniform has the potential to keep these African girls in school and change their futures for the better.
SHE is short for Style Her Empowered!
The nonprofit McGriff founded, Style Her Empowered, or SHE, resolutely builds sustainable education and employment opportunities for girls around the world from kindergarten through high school.
As SHE’s website details, poverty is a tremendous barrier to girls getting an education, and a school uniform is typically one of the more expensive pieces.
This capacity-building program debuted in 2017 in Notse, Togo, a country with a poor track record in girls’ education. Here, girls attend school for an average of only around two to three years, due to the expense and the prevailing belief that women can give the most value in the home, with just a third of girls progressing to junior high school.
As the required school uniform proved a financial barrier to attending school in Togo, as well as in many other countries, SHE designed the only school uniform in the world that grows, enabling girls to wear it with confidence for up to three years. In the form of a midi-length dress, it adjusts in various parts of the body using attached strings, to provide a well-tailored fit, while expanding as the wearer grows. It can grow up to 12 inches (30.5 cm) longer, and adjust six sizes in the chest, waist and hips. What’s more, SHE employs a team of 20 seamstresses in Togo, offering them good working conditions that allow them to thrive.
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Nurturing an education through a multifaceted approach
Very significantly, SHE founder, and “CNN Hero” McGriff, explains to CNN that not only do girls receive this school uniform that grows with them, but they also benefit from full school scholarships, a whole year of school supplies, year-round tutoring from their local staff, a reusable menstrual health kit, and durable, waterproof backpacks.
In a SHE video about the charity’s Girls’ Education Program, the Principal of Avassikpe Primary School,in Togo, KOMLAN, discusses the transformative power of SHE’s support to these girls: “Now, girls attend school much more regularly. Before, girls didn’t come to school because they didn’t have school clothes. Sometimes it’s the supplies that were missing. And sometimes for lack of financial means, they stay at home.”
According to him, SHE has helped almost half the schoolgirls in the school, and he is pleased to see how all are making more effort to continue their education. Some even aspire to become teachers themselves.
Local elders are also deeply grateful for the opportunities enabling their daughters to look forward to an easier life than that of a local farmer in this predominantly agricultural country.
SHE’s website confirms that its support has reached over 6000 girls, 98 percent of whom live in rural villages. Encouragingly, its program boasts a 99.1 percent student pass rate, which is 40 percent higher than the 2022 national average.
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Wishing the 500 new SHE-supported pupils in Togo, who just started learning in the new academic year, much happiness and success!
