Givology - give to learn, learn to give

The Emerge Life Skills Program prepares girls to enter their adult lives by equipping them with critical skills for healthy and independent living. The curriculum is tailored to the unique backgrounds and needs of the young women we serve. Girls learn practical skills such as how to manage their money, interview with confidence, develop their CV, set their own goals, and handle crises if they arise. They also go through an intensive 10 week Reproductive Health course that was developed by the International Youth Foundation and adapted for the Sri Lankan context by Emerge Lanka Foundation.

Girls learn to work independently and in groups and learn to communicate through presentations, journal entries, and collaboration. They participate in a monthly speaker series that connects girls to local women with inspirational stories and to service providers and organizations that can support them.

Girls also learn to address social issues that they identify using their Community Fund, which is composed of $0.25 for every jewelry product that they make in the Beads-to-Business Program. Girls work together to identify challenges in their shelter or the outside community and vote as a group on how to spend and implement their Community Fund.

In Sri Lanka, teenage girls who are the survivors of rape, incest, or abuse are removed from their families and placed in safe houses, often for years, as they testify in court. Separated from society, education and traditional support networks, these young women face the challenges of overcoming past trauma, confronting societal stigma, and integrating into society after years of living in an institution. Many of these girls also face the task of raising a child, despite the fact that they are teenagers themselves.

Emerge equips these young women with the tools they need to lead healthy, self-sufficient lives. Its ultimate goal is to empower a generation of young women who have survived abuse to support themselves and their children and gain the personal, social, and financial capital to solve their own community's most pressing problems.

While an American engineering student launched Emerge’s programs in 2005, Emerge Global is now run by a phenomenal and compassionate local team in Sri Lanka and all support in the US comes from volunteers.

To date, Emerge Global has worked with over 400 young women.
- Girls who entered our program too broken to speak are now comfortable sharing their ideas.
- Girls have learned to plan budgets, read a bank book, interview with confidence, and present their ideas to a group
- Participants have expressed increased confidence and self-worth.
- Through their Community Fund, participants have collectively identified challenges in the homes and communities in which they live and worked together to change them.
- Girls report increased confidence in their ability to change their communities and support themselves outside of the home

Emerge’s work has been recognized in Sri Lanka and abroad on Good Morning Sri Lanka, TIME Asia, the Boston Globem and in Glamour Magazine. Additionally, its efforts and success have been recognized through the current US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and former Miss Sri Lanka.

Emerge has a team of committed and qualified staff who will implement this project. Staff credentials include:
- Former experience working with children and in the education sector through a number of NGOs and non-profits in Sri Lanka, including: Sarvodaya, World Vision, Family Rehabilitation Centre, Foundation for Co-existence, and Plan Sri Lanka
- Consulting experience with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank
- Training in Reproductive Health by the International Youth Foundation
- Experience in curriculum development
- More than 15 years of jewelry design and marketing experience
- Diplomas in Human Rights with a focus on Child Rights, Conflict Resolution, and International Development
- Current Country Manager was recently nominated and accepted into the International Leadership Visitor Programme by the US Embassy in Sri Lanka

Emerge personnel have also won a number of awards including: a Rhodes Scholarship, a Truman Scholarship, and Glamour’s Top Ten College Women. Our Founder was one of twenty social entrepreneurs globally to be a YouthActionNet Global Fellow in 2009 and one of 14 to be a Sauvé Scholar, which supports young leaders in developing their work.

In 2010, Emerge was recognized as Boston’s Small Charity of the Year by the CLASSY Awards. Emerge’s programs have been featured on Good Morning Sri Lanka as well as in Glamour Magazine, the Boston Globe, and the Sunday Times in Sri Lanka. In 2013, Emerge was the featured case study in the book Do Good Well, an Amazon best-seller with reviews from experts such as Nicholas Kristof and Muhammad Yunus. The book featured Emerge as successfully putting the Do Good Well method into action.