I ♥ Being a Girl people, Alissa

Hey everyone,

my name is Alissa and I’m from Germany.

Since September 2015 I have joined I <3 being a Girl and I hope with our group we can inspire you and fascinate you about our themes.

For two years I have been studying social work. During my internship at pro familia, a non-governmental service and consumer organization for sexual and reproductive health and rights in Germany, I worked in the field of pregnancy counselling, which also includes counselling in conflict situations.

In this time I learned a lot about women/mother/family rights in Germany on the one hand and on the other hand I started thinking about the importance of sex education and the freedom of decision. Those topics were always important to me, especially in connection of the influence of media and religion in our society, but during my internship I had the chance to realise the reality of SRHR in Germany.

I got in contact with themes of SRHR and I started to reflect about the female role in society. This time strengthened my opinion that women and girls can decide how they want to live their life and that there still is a need of support.

So those are the reasons I’m writing here but now more about me :)

3 Things you enjoy doing?

mussels in Brussels

Traveling - I love to travel and getting around. Thereby you have the chance to get to know other cultures, other people, amazing landscapes and different food. Which leads me to my next thing I enjoy doing:

I like to try new dishes - Either I cook and try new recipes or I like to eat out at a restaurant.

Reading a good book or watching a good movie – For me “good” means that, afterwards, you start thinking about the story and meaning you saw/read. You are touched by the occurrence, the words and the people and it feels like it is real. Especially with a book you can understand a whole generation or historical facts if it is well written.

What makes you continue? Why are you still doing it?

Now, after half a year of internship, I noticed that I want to stay active in the fields of women rights. I had the chance to listen to many lectures and strong women and I could form my own opinion. I would like other women and girls to have the opportunity to form this too and thereby they can decide on their own, how they want to live.

The world would be a better place if everybody would:

 

Listen to the story of a person.

 

Watch “The Hours”: The movie is about three women, living in different generations, interconnected by the novel “Mrs Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf

Read “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. An amazing novel about childhood, racism and inequality.

Try regularly something new to broaden one’s horizon.

Future: before you're 80, you'd like to...

See all the countries of the world. Ok that’s a lot but there are quite a few places I’d like to visit. For example Corvo, an small island of the Azores archipelago.

Next to my travel plans I hope I can say that my work as a social worker had an impact on other people and decision makers. Maybe it was my little input to make the world a better place by helping people and by pointing out that special groups have a need for help and therefore they need other options in their lives. These options require to be enabled or we should support these groups to help themselves.

I ♥ Being a Girl people, Magdalena

Hi cuties!

My name is Magdalena Druid and I am just as bananas as I look!

SRHR has been my biggest passion for as long as I can remember, but when you are nine years young it is one of those interests that you tend to keep to yourself. When I started a new school in 2008 I decided that it was also going to be a new beginning and my chance to be all me. This led me to join RFSU (Swedish association for sexuality education) in my local RFSU group; RFSU Linköping. Soon I became active and joined the local board. I also participated in different trainings and became a peer educator within the project “Color of Love”. Since then not a day goes by without med breathing and living all things SRHR. A friend told me about YSAFE and I immediately fell in love with the whole idea of young people being in charge of these topics. Then I met all the wonderful activists, and I became hooked for life! I have now been a member of the YSAFE SC since feb 2013 and I have been the Vice chair since February this year. It is such a privilege to be a part of a network that has come such a long way and that will only continue to get even better.  

Those rare occasions when I have tome for something other than SRHR I love to read, hang out with awesome people and try to make the world a better place.

The world would be a better place if everybody would:

Realise that ALL people are the same.

Eat more chocolate.

Do more unexpected things that make them happy. (I for example attended a underwear party once, and it changed my life J ).

Before I’m 80, I’d like to have made a difference for the better in someone’s life. And I hope that I can look back at a life full of laughter, activism and really tasty food ^_^

I ♥ Being a Girl people, Ilze

Hey-ho folks!

My name is Ilze Leimane and this is my story!

There are thousands of things that can make me happy but three that always work are

TRAVELLING, VOLUNTEERING & LEARNING SOMETHING NEW

What brought me to I ♥ Being a Girl? The fact that I ♥ Being a Girl!
Once upon a time (5 years ago) I started to volunteer in  Latvia's Association For Family Planning and Reproductive Health which inspired me to educate myself more about the issues all over the world and one of them (with thousand sub-issues) is sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). From the local I decided to go global. I have been volunteering in Europe and Asia, gained experience and inspiration to do something on this topic. For quite a while I am part of the YSAFE group where I have met dozen of inspiring people with the interest to improve the SRHR=Human rights.

Surely world be a better place if we would

• watch more documentaries over various topics. Here you can find bunch of them. Personally, my last favourite is Schooling The World (2010) 
• listen reggae, meditative and tribal music! And here is one great musician Asa (Asha)! You should get to know her!
• read more books as such! I recommenced Khaled Hosseini books (very strong, cruel and honest stories from the Afghanistan that won't let you go for a while after finishing the book). Also, you should read blogs, start with the I ♥ Being a Girl to make world a better place! One more recommendation is this blog. It's about the 20-years-old girl who is cycling around the world! Inspirational!
• step in a another man's shoes for a day. Just try and you will break many of your own prejudices and stereotypes!

There are millions of things I want to do before I am 80! I want to create something sustainable for the people around me and beyond, visit 6 continents and learn 6 languages, learn how to dance, how to play ukulele, how to balance! Live in African village at least for a year, return to Puducherry, live in a eco-village, change someone's life, overcome my fears, change my stereotypes and hike the Kilimanjaro! I want to be healthy and unstoppable! Proud, useful, happy and the most important - to have a choice!

Emotions are contagious, spread more positivity and good thoughts. It will affect other people who will affect more people. If you think that you are too small to change something, try sleeping with a mosquito in the same room.

Peace!

LaToya ♥ Being a Girl (and Girl to Girl is an amazing initiative!)

LaToya Lane is an activist in IPPF member association in Barbados, and recently - with the help of internets and many people who though that her ideas are worthwhile - have got the support to launch an innovative and much needed initiative that brings together business, agriculture and empowerment for young girls and women.

My Name is LaToya Lane and I enjoy reading, taking new courses, and listening to podcasts on business.

How did you start your work?

Its funny that you say work, because many people do not see volunteer as real work. I began my work with my local family planning association at the age of 17. I must say that when I began I never thought that it would have assisted me with such personal and professional growth. I have been able to move from the President of that association's youth arm (Youth Advocacy Movement Barbados) to Third Vice President on the Barbados Family Planning’s board of directors. I love working in the area of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and I am at my best when I am delivering information that could enrich someone else's life.

What makes you continue? Why are you still doing it?

I have come to realize that my impact or my reach may not be as large as I want it to be, but having the ability to assist people in making moves to change their behaviors one person at a time still counts for something. It is that ability to impact at least one person that motivates me now, the small changes I can help people make, as these will hopefully snowball into bigger life changes.

What is this your endeavor of yours "Girl to Girl" and what impact will it have?

Girl to Girl is a personal development program for young girls and women using agri­business as a uniting component. Girl to Girl will take 14­20 young women from across the island of Barbados, training them in the area of business, personal development and agriculture. It will allow these women, most who have no experience in farming, to grow a percentage of crop for their families/communities and the remainder will be sold in local markets to obtain further capital to sustain the project.

The world would be a better place if everybody would: ­ 
See To Sir, With Love (1967). ­
Listen... ­ lol.. how about if people learned to listen? ­
Read  ­ I WIll Teach You to Be Rich by Remit Sethi.
­Try ­ mentoring.

Before I'm 80, I'd like to write a book and start a youth home. 

Click to read the feature that Barbados Today did for the Girl to Girl project.

Shanique ♥ Being a Girl

While going through the stories about the IPPF's Emerging Leaders' Summit celebrated a year ago, a initiative called The I'm Glad I'm A Girl Foundation caught our attention. It does sound like we have many things in common, so we asked it's founding member, Shanique Campbell to share her story. 

"I am Shanique Campbell.
I enjoy singing, chilling with the people I love and eating... I am a BIG foodie.

If I really stop to think about it, I started as small as 5 years old when I would get the most helpful certificate every year in school. But this really evolved in high school, selling newspapers for my key club that would then be used to purchase much needed items for children's homes all over.
In University, I became a peer leader for the premier leadership program UWILEADS; which had as a part of its function a Social Justice Programe that sought out ways in which both schools and communities could be engaged and people could become empowered.

Upon getting pregnant in 2011, the latter part of my second year of University studies, I had an extremely difficult time adjusting with what was to come not just physically but mentally as well and what started out as just a summer camp has now developed into being so much more. Not only did I give birth to a beautiful baby girl, but I also had the opportunity be a founding member of the only foundation of its kind in Jamaica; The I'm Glad I'm A Girl Foundation.

Our target was to empower girls who are currently in the most defining moments of their lives - puberty - and by way of doing that, not only empower them but help them to empower their friends and families.

I'm Glad I'm A Girl from Amina Doherty on Vimeo.

This foundation has redefined me and has really put into focus what I believe in. It has also afforded me the opportunity to travel and not only speak about Jamaica and what we are doing there but to also share best practices with other regions so that they too can help to uplift this vulnerable group. Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Conflict Resolution, Financial Literacy and Career Planning are all things that are needed to help to cultivate the world that we want to see.
I firmly believe that if you develop a girl, you develop a nation and as such I try to share my passion with anyone who will listen.

What makes me continue is really just a drive to see social justice and gender equality something that is a reality all over the world. I truly love what I do and as a mother, I want to be the change I wish to see in the world so that my daughter will have a different experience than I did.
As an Emerging Leader with IPPF and the youth advisor for the Global Coalition on Women and Aids, I see myself being able to give a voice to the voiceless and to help others find their voice along the way and it is a responsibility that I honor with pride.

The world would be a much better place if everybody would:

• See The Man with One Red Shoe with Tom Hanks and The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie
• Listen to Jill Scott and learn about the fat back...
• Read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Try zip-lining (it's amazing!) and following their gut 

Before I am 80, I would like to travel to at least 40 countries, to experience the many different cultures and of course try out their food. I would also like to be thought of as a pastry chef by even one person! :) "

Momal ♥ Being a Girl

Through contacts made in WSYA and Women Deliver, we are happy to present:

Name: Momal Mushtaq, creator of thevoiceofyouth.com and thefreedomtraveller.com

I enjoy doing anything that would fall under the category of social media, social entrepreneurship and/or social work.

I founded The Voice of Youth (tVoY) in June 2010. It is an award-winning youth network spread across 151 countries of the world. Social media as an alternate form of media has brought the conflict zones of the world into limelight. With the vision of a peaceful society, one of the goals of tVoY is to speak to millions about resolution of conflicts, their nature and root causes. Our focus is on the young people. By sharing their story, we feel they can be a great source of inspiration and encouragement to those who are going through similar situations.

Other than that, I recently launched The Freedom Traveller. I call it "a young Pakistani woman's uprising, her desire to be free and her dream to travel the world." I come from a male-dominated society where girls can't go out alone anywhere – be it the store or the university – everything is dependent on males. Considering this, just being abroad has been 'precious' for me, because that's when I got to experience the true essence of freedom, and you can talk about it, think about it, see it in on television screen but you can't feel it. I have launched The Freedom Traveller to continue my journey as a traveler, redefine the word 'freedom' for women and highlight the work of other inspiring women from around the world. 

The world would be a better place if everybody would:

See The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Listen to TED Talks (I ♥ Being a Girl seconds that, see here)

Read The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003) by Mitch Albom

Try following their heart.

Before I'm 80, I'd like to travel the world.

I ♥ Being a Girl people, meet the press: Maya (YSAFE SC) ♥ Being a Girl

We're going back to our roots, both I ♥ Being a Girl and IPPF wise, and exploring our own experiences. And you deserve to meet the people behind, anyways.

So, here it goes!

Name: Maya Koumanova  

Things I enjoy doing:
- travel
- dance
- have challenging/funny arguments with friends 
 

I became aware of sexual and reproductive health and rights by growing up with it. Different issues that would disturbed me, gradually became clear and full of meaning once at the age of 14 I took interest in my sister’s voluntary work for IPPF. I got magnified by its power and have subsequently took it up myself. Since then my knowledge and interest in SRHR has deepened, and now it has become inseparable part of my worldview and experience of the world.  Meeting so many amazing people through my work and hearing their stories has been the biggest driver and source of inspiration.

The world would be a better place if everybody would: 

- Watch Carl Sagan’s "Cosmos" and The Joy Luck Club, a movie after Amy Tan’s novel by the same name  about human relationships and interaction, generational change, the evolving roles and lives of women.

- Listen good old Irish music and from time to time Stephen Fry pod-casts (I know it is not exactly music, but one can drown in them)  
- Read more history/science/sociology books so we can grow as a society and probably the classic  1984, scary but brilliant book which can encourage critical thinking and more thought on where we want our society to go.

Before I'm 80, I want to have  learn how to play an instrument, visit Australia, learn how to make awesome home-made ice-cream and have a happy family.

WSYA Power 2 Women: the African Women Power Network / Mary

As you should know by now, I ♥ Being a Girl received one of the 2012 World Summit Youth Awards. The award showcases the best ICT solutions made by young people that moves us closer to achieving the MDGs. Ours is - obviously - in the category Power to Women.
As we are far from being the only ones doing things around gender via the internets and such, here you have some more:    

Name: Mary Olushoga, the African Women Power Network / @Africwomenpower 

I enjoy meeting people, traveling to new places, and watching performance art. 

I am a small business advocate and founder of www.awpnetwork.com an enterprise given honorable distinction at the 2012 World Summit Youth Award (WSYA). I am the first-ever GOOD Maker/Oxfam America International Women’s Day Challenge Winner, a Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI) Associate, and an Oxfam America Sisters on the Planet Ambassador.

I hold a bachelor's degree from Union College in Schenectady, New York and a master's of science degree from Baruch College. She also served as a Public Policy Fellow at the University at Albany, Center for Women in Government and Civil Society and most recently participated in the Sub-Saharan African Women In Public Service Fall Institute.

The awpnetwork.com is a small business blog that provides business education content and showcases the work of African women and youth entrepreneurs. We tell their entrepreneurial stories, discuss the business challenges, and successes of African women and youth entrepreneurs. As a start-up organization, I am proud to say that we have engaged over 150 African small business women and youth entrepreneurs through our online trainings and webinars. Participants signed in from Lagos, Abuja, and throughout the United States.
The webinar topics were selected based on small business trends, and included conversations regarding (1) how to use mobile technology to start, expand, and move business ideas forward (2) how to use marketing, branding, and PR tools to start, grow, and expand business ideas (3) how to build one's personal development brand - based on feedback, participants found these topics very useful.
The AWP Network will continue to provide small business support services to help African women and youth entrepreneurs be better positioned for success.

The big picture goal of my organization is to promote a positive image of Africa. The AWP network began with a tweet in 2011. I started simply by tweeting out business related information about news or sources of funding. To date, I have over 500 followers. It began with the idea to provide business related content to African entrepreneurs anywhere in the world, with a particular focus, on women and youths. Not long after I started, I was invited to speak on BBC about the fuel subsidy strike in Nigeria and since then, things have really taken off – in a good way. With the exposure, I felt something was right. I began to think about how to expand beyond twitter, so I started a wordpress blog that would feature and profile African women and youth entrepreneurs – both in the U.S. and throughout the continent. It has been a very exciting year.

The whole idea of AWP began after working in the small business industry for a number of years. I saw how business support services could really help entrepreneurs grow and expand. I know that Africa has a different set of challenges than the United States, but I think that free and available business support services would help the small business industry. African women have always been entrepreneurial, so I am not promoting anything new. I think that supporting them can help many to grow and expand quickly, which in turn will enable them to hire and create jobs for the millions of unemployed.

The world would be a better place if everybody would:
  - Watch A Beautiful Mind (2001), American biographical drama film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics.
  - Listen to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
  - Read awpnetwork.com interviews and visit our website.
  - Travel around the world more often (the more you see, the clearer your vision becomes)

I try as much as possible to live in the present. I am presently living my dreams so I don't think much about the future but before I am 80 - I would like to start a company, sell it, and make money. At 80, I would like to be home with my husband, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Also, travel occasionally.

WSYA Power 2 Women: GotStared.at / Saransh

As you should know by now, I ♥ Being a Girl received one of the 2012 World Summit Youth Awards. The award showcases the best ICT solutions made by young people that moves us closer to achieving the MDGs. Ours is - obviously - in the category Power to Women.

As we are far from being the only ones doing things around gender via the internets and such, here you have some more:   

Saransh Dua, @SaranshDua and GotStared.At

I enjoy spending time with family and friends, reading, and traveling.

GotStared.At has grown a lot as a campaign in terms of the core idea behind the movement. Now it is a movement that aims to create a counter culture amongst the people in our society where respecting the other gender would be considered cool.

Over history it has been realized that certain trends tend to catch the fancy of the common man. AIDS awareness, education for the poor, green energies, etc. are examples of causes which, obviously being quite relevant, managed to gain wide spread public support in India when compared to many other pertinent issues as well. We aim to create something similar with the idea of gender as the central theme.

For too long the idea of gender debates, discussions have been a talk amongst the elitist in India. This needs to be converted into a discussion amongst the masses and we aim to do just that. We are all about simplification of complex issues which the public tend to shy away from discussing simply because of the jargon used in the messages sent to the public or the fact that in the age of twitter and face book people tend to be drawn more towards graphic driven content. We create posters and other visualizations portraying complex issues in the common mans parlance. The result of this is that rather than people tuning into what maybe a few experts have to say, to tune into what their community has to say and engage with them on the online platforms provided by us.

 

The idea behind #itsnotherfault came out at a time when most of the public in India was extremely hassled over the widespread assumptions that the girls who were getting molested on the street of India were the ones who were asking for it. This meant that the short clothes and bar hopping lifestyles were causing a rise in the “testosterone” levels of the Indian male and the poor guys had no option but to sexually harass the women as she was apparently “asking for it”.

So the site GotStared.At was initially developed by Dhruv as a place to come in and post what they were wearing while they were harassed. This led to a tremendous amount of virality as it was tackling a very pertinent issue of victim bashing as described above.
People from all over the world started posting pictures of the clothes that they were wearing when harassed and the flow of entries still hasn’t stopped as everyday there is more proof of the fact that no matter where you are, the only thing that will cause the harassment is the perpetrator and his intentions and nothing else.

The world would be a better place if everybody would:
  - See something new every week.
  - Listen to The Beatles, Pink Floyd and the list goes on...
  - Read The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Poor Economics, Think, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
  - Try being genuine and humane.

Before I'm 80, I'd like to... travel the world.

IPPF ♥ - YSAFE SC - Thomas

Name: Thomas Goyvaerts, member of the YSAFE Steering Committee.

I enjoy taking challenges, traveling and going out with friends.

I became aware by being active in the social circuit since I was 15. Every opportunity or challenge I faced helped me grow and helped me get more aware about all kinds of social topics that were now to me. For example, right now I'm doing an internship with male sex workers, something I recently learned about and immediately wanted to know some more.

I joined my IPPF Member Association, Sensoa, because to me it was one step up in the whole social staircase; I tend to travel a lot between organizations so to learn and grow even more.

The world would be a better place if everybody would:
   - See a starry midnight sky in the mountains to make you feel small, the view from a high mountaintop to make you feel big and the look of love in that one special person's eyes just so you really know how special you are. If you can do this and be happy with yourself, you can face any storm.
  - Listen Everybody's free to wear sunscreen by Baz Luhrman.
  - Read the stuff you wrote when you were young; love letters, diaries, school reports, cards, letters... So you can see how you've grown, see what possibilities you had but didn't know about and realize that you still have so many possibilities right now that you don't know about.
  - Try many new directions, and if they don't turn out to be like you wanted then at least you made one step in the right direction.

Before I'm 80 I want to have traveled a lot, I want to be able to say that I found true love (even if I lost it by then) & I want to be proud of who I am and stick by it for the rest of my life.

WSYA Power 2 Women: React & Change / Renato

As you should know by now, I ♥ Being a Girl received one of the 2012 World Summit Youth Awards. The award showcases the best ICT solutions made by young people that moves us closer to achieving the MDGs. Ours is - obviously - in the category Power to Women.
As we are far from being the only ones doing things around gender via the internets and such, here you have some more:   

Name: Renato Dornelas, @renato0dornelas
React and Change, @React_n_Change

I enjoy traveling, photographing, and talking.

I am the Head of International Affairs of React & Change. Basically, it is an online-driven, youth-led, non-profit organization committed to activating youth to combat gender inequality and its derivates, such as bullying, unemployment, violence against women, racism and poverty by educating and empowering youth through social entrepreneurship, leadership skills and advocacy.

We hold a diverse of events across the country, gathering young leaders, social entrepreneurs and community activists from all 26 states of Brazil for high-level trainings, free of any costs, in order to share best practices, educate about and learn how to end and approach gender inequality effectively.

I began to work with React & Change because of a desire to take action against domestic violence statutes in Brazil that had forced a member of my family to remain in an abusive relationship for five years because domestic violence is considered a "private" rather than state matter, and thus not grounds for divorce. This personal tragedy empowered me and helped me to discover how I can make an impact on the world.

Our website and social media work as main tools to spread the information from the forums for people who could not attend the event, as well as it works as an interactive platform for young people to share ideas and discuss gender-based issues.

The world would be a better place if everybody would:
- see Oklahoma! (1955, 1999), it's lovely,
- listen Change the Sheets by Kathleen Edwards,
- read Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
- practice Taekwondo!

I only have short-term plans, but before 80 I'd like to speak at least 6 different languages and have visited all my friends around the world!

WSYA Power 2 Women: Moraba / Mxolisi

As you should know by now, I ♥ Being a Girl received one of the 2012 World Summit Youth Awards. The award showcases the best ICT solutions made by young people that moves us closer to achieving the MDGs. Ours is - obviously - in the category Power to Women.
As we are far from being the only ones doing things around gender via the internets and such, here you have some more:   
 

Name: Mxolisi Xaba, Moraba, @afroesgames

I enjoy football, contemplative and introspective conversations, and being in the field taking social messages to youth challenging them to interrogate the choices they make for themselves.

Moraba came around because there was a need to begin to address young boys who were inheriting and receiving false messages and definitions around how to relate to their female counterparts. We were conscious that, although we wanted to address young boys with our intervention, we also did not want to make it exclusive to them because the most important attribute of our application is the fact that girls have a space in what is incorrectly considered a a male domain (gaming) to challenge these misconceptions through game play around issues of equality, forms of abuse, expectations in relationships, consequences of abuse, rights and responsibilities of persons. What we subsequently found after users engaged Moraba was that Moraba provided a platform for youth to engage each other on issues and questions they had regarding their gender roles. 

Moraba Gender Game from Phil G on Vimeo.
You can download the game here!

The idea and the implementation has proved itself to be so compelling that Al Jazeera has given them coverage!

Listening to the music of Basement Jaxx vs Metropole Orkest, Buena Vista Social Club and Ladysmith Black Mamabazo would make the world a better place.
So would reading the Bible, selected speeches of Marcus Garvey and a Biography of Yourself.
And watching the movie I don't ... a movement (1, 2) by Thuli Thabethe and Nonkuleko Ndlovu.
Trying to say nothing (keeping quiet, you know) for a week would do, too.

Before I'm 80 I would like to forgive those who have hurt me and be forgiven by those I have hurt.