International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate the adventure of the path in girls’ rights, but also a time to provide a sobering reality: there is still plenty of time to go. At the existing rate, we are more than 130 years of achieving complete gender equality.
Consider the following statistics: Only about 1 in four older women ages 15 to 19 are not in school, workers, or training, as opposed to 1 in 10 children. Harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) are widespread in many regions of the world. And violence against women does not remain unusual: 1 in 6 women in this older organization has experienced physical or sexual violence from a husband or spouse in the year beyond the year.
For today’s young activists, they are not just numbers, they are a call to action for change. Although the extent of gender inequality in society can feel intimidating, many younger tweakers have found that the most difficult way to have an effect is through the network and through the editing of others. Here, members of the National Youth Council of UNICEF USA, Anika, Jazmine and Sophia, share how and why we decide for a longer career more equal for women and what it means to be other young people today.
Gender-based violence The factor that Jazmine, a 17-year-old Los Angeles school student, Jazmine, sought to raise awareness about her activism work. “It’s a complicated topic to discuss, so conversations around it are limited, but the stigma wishes to be broken. It can only be young that other people identify healthy and other barriers. “
To do this, she turned to UNICEF club members at her school.
In collaboration with a non -profit organization, the YWCA, accumulated a team of other thirteen people to be volunteers and organize their annual vigil about candles and its resources fair. The members of the UNICEF club gave candles to families and friends to honor the lost life due to domestic violence and the urgent education of the program for the event, which included the survivors who shared their non -public stories.
The strength of the occasion not only came from the stories told, but of the way the network met due to this. “Collaboration with other young people is the key because it allows you to mix other reports and knowledge, which has the maximum impact,” explains Jazmine. “Other young people today know how much force can come from defense. “
Anika (center) in the Intercom in the UN religious center in New York in November 2024. In a discussion panel, Anika passionately interacts unity and embodies the force of the leadership of young people in action.
Anika, 18, first year student at the University of Michigan, says that being a young activist means raising other young women thanks to her voluntary paintings and the defense of UNICEF USA. Whether it is a formation of the plea for and with other young people or sharing their voice in spaces where only adults are heard, she continues to tension for change, knowing, as she says, “that the things I do are not only for me, but for millions of others that do not have the same opportunities. “
This is especially vital not to forget whenever you encounter resistance because of your age and gender. “While those moments can be demeaning, I find it helpful to focus on myself and what led me to those reports in the first place,” Anika says.
A decisive moment for her? Being panelist of the interreligious joining the rights of young people in the UN the past fall. Although she was the youngest user in the work, she thought her point of view was valued. “It was incredibly satisfactory to have the Americans with much more experience than I wondering my concepts and how they deserve to put into force of voices for other young people in their respective groups,” explains Anika. His reports have taught him that “the very small action can make a snowball in even more vital impacts. Take small steps to gain confidence at the beginning is correct. In the end, he knows that his voice and everything he does. “
Sophia spoke at the UNICEF Gala in New York in December 2024. In his speech, he talked about his adventure to adjust to a change of change and what it is like with his sense of respect.
Even entering the pieces where concepts are exchanged or where decisions are made can first be a challenge. Sophia, 19, first -year student at the University of Cornell, emphasizes: “I saw that I do not get a direct decrease, because often, they never invite me to the room to get it. The spaces that reject me according to my age or my sex tendency to exclude me completely. She achieves this through” prepare prepared, speaking with confidence and making them maximum to forget me. “
This goes hand in hand with some other war that pits many young activists against each other: they are reduced to their sex rather than seen as multifaceted individuals. “There is a harmful tendency to treat women as an exclusive identity,” Sophia says.
Actually, being a woman is just one of the many demographic knowledge with which she joins. “My reports as an American Moroccan woman, the Muslim woman and the first generation student shape the way I sail in activism. The disorders that I face are not the same as all other women, and yet we hope to speak as if we constitute all women everywhere. The true supplication means detecting the complexity of identity, in activism they become much more. “
There is a list of retailers of edible expectations imposed on young activists, who feel forced to deal with themselves before they can gain the right to make their voices heard. Sophia observes: “We have to be acceptable: strong, but not too aggressive, affirmative, but not emotional. There is a tacit tension that is constantly, to be twice prepared, twice more educated, just to be taken seriously. And when we succeed, our paintings are rejected as a hobby instead of strategy. “
But again, try how the network can help. By sharing and listening to the reports of other young women with a multitude of reports and identities, we see the many exclusive paths towards activism. However, in these differences, there is also no unusual and motivation for change, which leads to empowerment. The 3 young activists cite their mothers as inspiration their activism, and it is not a coincidence; This is evidence that autonomiad women empower other women. “Bring an area that if you bring others with you,” adds Sophia.
As for what they would say to young women and women who need to take measures and possibly be new in the activism space? Your recommendation is simple. Get, anywhere you are.
“You don’t want the best plan, platform, or words,” Sophia says. “Talk in the spaces you are in, locate the problems that are troubling you and take small movements that turn into anything bigger. Also, try, try, try. My father told me: ‘Let them tell you no’. “
Each success, progress and replacement in the numbers began as an idea turned into an action, and was found on the road. Personality investment progresses, however, it locates the network and sitting with others combines compassion, which establishes the course for the maximum type of shocking and shocking replacement.
Ready to take action and a Spark replacement in your community?Start forming a UNICEF club at your school