A few days ago, I was asked again a question I receive quite often, “How did you grow up so differently from the ghettos where you were raised?” My answer has always been simple, the...
Cultural Norms
The Adolescent Girl Puzzle
In my community, being a girl is like putting together a really difficult puzzle. Being a girl can often mean that the different pieces of you don’t quite fit together. You should not be...
Building Support and Trust Through Volunteering
When I was 15 years old, I joined Youth for Youth, a Romanian non-governmental organization working on youth sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). I became a volunteer and a...
You are the change
As a girl growing up in Kenya, a patriarchal society with a strong cultural heritage, I knew from the onset that achieving my goals was not going to be a walk in the park. Most of the time...
The Limitless Power of Girls
I first uncovered the inequalities and challenges that girls face at a very young age. When I was a girl, I loved basketball. It made me feel free, fast, strong, and in control of my own...
The Voice of a Survivor
During the three decades I have lived as a woman, I have experienced, felt, and witnessed many discriminatory practices, especially harmful traditional practices such as female genital...
Every Woman is Powerful
I believe that every woman is powerful, and just needs to explore her inner strengths. This is a story of an ordinary woman who opened her eyes in the very normal middle class family, where...
A Few Little Words
It was a Saturday morning. I was 16 and had just finished my morning chores and was in my room, getting dressed to meet up with a girlfriend and walk together to the Woolworth’s...
A Breakthrough Moment, Thanks to Dad
One moment does stand out for me. When I was a teenager, my father told me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl. I can’t even remember what it was but still remember standing at...
There but for the grace of God go I
Everyone has heard that expression at one time or another. By no means am I a religious person, but one day, when on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to India with my dad, its meaning became...