International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate the way to girls, but also a time to throw gentle about a truth that provides thinking: there is still a long way to go. At the existing rate, we have more than 130 years to succeed in all gender equality.
Consider the following statistics: Only approximately 1 in four elderly women aged 15 to 19 are not at school, workers or training, in opposition to 1 in 10 children. North practices such as the marriage of children and female genital mutilations (MGF) are widespread in many regions of the world. And the opposite violence of women is not kept unusual: 1 in 6 women of this age organization has suffered physical or sexual violence of a husband or spouse in the year beyond the year.
For today’s young activists, they are not only figures, they are a call to action for change. Although the scope of gender inequality in society may feel intimidating, many younger adjustments have discovered that the maximum difficult way to have an effect is through the network and through the edition of others. Here, the members of the National Youth Council of UNICEF USA, Anika, Jazmine and Sophia, percentage of how and why they decide for a long more equitable career for women and what it means to be other young people today.
Gender -based violence was the consultation that Jazmine, 17, a better student at the Los Angeles School, sought to raise awareness about his activism work. “This is a difficult issue to discuss, so the surrounding conversations are limited, but stigma will have to break. It is only then that other young people can identify healthy borders with themselves and with others. “
To do this, he turned to the members of the UNICEF club of his school. Together, they organized an occasion for the month of awareness of domestic violence last October.
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 interconformation of the concession in the rights of young people of the UN Devoto Center in New York in November 2024. During a circular table, Anika passionately discussed the interconfresional unit and embodied the leadership force of other 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 vital not to forget every time you find resistance due to your age and sex. “Although those moments can be degrading, I place it useful to concentrate on myself and what led me to those reports first,” Anika explains.
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 the UNICEF Gala in New York in December 2024. In her speech, she talked about her vacation to adapt to a change of change and how she began with her feeling 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 faces many young activists: they are reduced to their sex instead of being considered as multifaceted individuals. “There is a harmful trend to treat women as an exclusive identity,” says Sophia.
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 would say to young people and women who need to act and can be new in the activism space? Your recommendation is simple. Start, anywhere wherever you are.
“You don’t want the plan, the platform or the best words,” says Sophia. “Speaking in the spaces in which you are, locate the disorders that stir and take small movements that become something bigger. Besides, he tries, try, try. My father told me:” Let them say no. “
Each success, progress and replacement of figures began as a remodeled idea in an action and found himself on the road on the road. Perseverance combines progress, however, locating the network and sitting with others feed the compassion, which establishes the course for the maximum impressive replacement type. The replacement in which to achieve the general equality of the sexes will not take 130 years.
Ready to act and a spark replacement in your community? Start forming a UNICEF club at your school