By Pamela O'Brien | Development Director
Every August, our flagship Learning & Leadership Center in Kafue, Zambia, the Amos Youth Centre (AYC), holds its Annual Leadership and Life Skills Camp. While the week is filled with fun, creativity, and friendship, its deeper purpose is clear: to equip girls with the skills, confidence, and platforms to become powerful messengers of change in their own community.
How the Camp Helps Girls Find Their Voice
In a context where girls face early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and barriers to education, the camp provides an environment where they can practice leadership safely and visibly. Through sessions on health, reproductive rights, and self-esteem, girls learn language and knowledge that allow them to speak confidently about their futures.
Activities like theater, poetry, and banner-making give girls tools to turn ideas into messages that resonate with their peers and families. Even something as simple as practicing sign language ensures inclusivity, teaching girls that leadership means making sure no voice is left out.
Why It Works
The camp is intentionally designed to amplify girls’ voices beyond its walls. On the final day, campers march through Kafue carrying banners with messages about ending early marriage, preventing teenage pregnancy, and supporting girls’ education. These public demonstrations are critical in a community where harmful gender norms persist. Parents and community members pause, read, and discuss the messages — sparking conversations that might not otherwise happen.
Because participation is earned through ongoing involvement at AYC, the girls who attend are already leaders-in-training. Camp strengthens their ability to communicate, builds their confidence to address sensitive issues, and reinforces that their voices matter in shaping the future of their community.
Lasting Impact
The result is not just a memorable week, but a generation of young women leaving camp ready to advocate for themselves and their peers. Girls return home as role models, carrying positive messages into their schools, churches, and families. Year after year, the camp is proving that when girls are given platforms to lead and the tools to amplify their voices, entire communities shift toward equity and opportunity.
Thank you for making it possible for these girls to become champions of change in Kafue.
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