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...
Encouraging/Empowering Others
Awareness is key for prevention
Don’t ever give up, demand answers from your doctor, question the root cause of your illness, find another doctor if your gut is questioning your current one, become your own health...
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...
A Girl from Sinking Bottom
Early in my childhood, my parents separated and eventually got divorced. My sister and I went to live with our grandmother in rural Jamaica. We lived in a farming community called James...
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...
Building Intergenerational Bridges
I started my work as a volunteer and I still volunteer. Late at night, in the weekends, travelling in and out of my city alone for 10 hours for both work and volunteer work, sometimes I get...
Simply Because It Is Yours
For the last eight years I’ve been working on HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Mexico but also globally, and I really feel that I have one of the most beautiful...