You see the girl in the wheelchair, and you think, “Oh, poor thing. She’s disabled. Life must be so hard for her.” You walk right up to her, and then turn around and ask the person...
#YoungWomenSay
Stories submitted by women under 30…
Madame Secretary General From the Slum
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...
A Blessing In Disguise: My Experience With Acne
Three years ago, my skin broke with, in my eyes, severe adult acne. I was devastated to say the least. My self-esteem and self confidence entirely depleted as everyday I looked in the...
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...