I ♥ Being a Girl at WD'13: Gehad

In the Youth 2.0: Young People Online session on Tuesday, Maya had the pleasure to share the panel with Gehad El Sayed from Y-PEER who talked about her network's 10 Days of Activism campaign.

We approached Gehad asking for empowerment recipes and tips on how to overcome the difficult moments of activism. She suggested three aspects for successful work:

1. Wishing to do something unusual (unusually beneficial) for the community as the starting point.
2. Having full support from your relatives. And in this case it's not about your blood-related family exclusively, although their support is also very appreciated. You need a social safety net that you can rely on.
3. Trying to find the right approach to the problem, a new way to go forward that hasn't been tried yet.

And for the times when everything seems to be against you, Gehad suggest you keep trying and use the unpleasant, not that successful experience as something to learn from until you find the genuine spirit in which the task becomes bearable. And remember how it could've been so much worse in the first place. 

I ♥ Being a Girl in the social media and young people session, #WD2013

#WD2013

I [heart] Being a Girl presentation at Women Deliver 2013 from jauatkales

Maya just did her presentation of  I ♥ Being a Girl in a session Youth 2.0: Young People Online, talking about where this project came from and what we have been doing since 2010. Together with Gehad from YPEER, Sana from Chanan Development Association and Vanessa from Planned Parenthood Global sharing insights on social media and the nature of the internets.

IAC'12 I [Heart] Being a Girl session (THGS12) presentations

Finally, here are the presentations from the session we had at the International AIDS Conference.

As Jessie says in her report:

"Tea Parties are casual safe spaces for girls where anyone who is a feminist can come met up and speak up about their frustrations but also share their hopes for the future. The social pressures put on girls are often hypocritical, including how media portrays women as sexy and sex figures, but young women are condemned for expressing themselves sexually or wearing revealing clothes, or they’re expected to be working professionals taking care of themselves (even with a considerable stagnant pay gap), but once you have a family, you are “supposed” to become domestic and support your husband. Gender is a social construct that does not have to follow your biology. Your gender and how you express yourself should not be dictated by societal norms that are often oppressive. In the words of Leynah Gbowee, “It is time for women to stop being politely angry.” There are various forms of resistance to the prejudice of “being a girl” and support for young women looking to make a difference all over the world. In some rural parts, girls learn how to make reusable menstrual pads so that they can continually go to school, and have their privacy. We should have open discussions about questioning gender stereotyping and combat prejudice social norms, like the pay gap. Places like the Philippines are extremely strict when it comes to reproductive health especially for  women, and the results are harrowing; there are half a million unsafe abortions a year and cervical cancer is one of the top killers in the country. When women and more girls have a stronger and unified voice in civil society, they can start to change those societal norms."

IAC'12 IHBG from jauatkales

(Yes, the videos are not really there. The first one is the movie from the 2012 AIDS Conference that you can find here. And the second one is a surprise coming... for now we can say that it was made with a lot of help from all our beloved people in HERA, and that it's amazing!)

IHBG at IAC'12 Best Practice Nepal from jauatkales

(And, yes, obviously, this is the example of the simple fact that talking about and exploring sexualities, pleasure, taboos, barriers... well, you know, the empowerment stuff can be positive and can be - at the same time - very local and very universal indeed. Thank you so much, Shubha, for sharing this experience with us!)

Gender in Peer Education (AIDS 2012 Youth-Pre)

The presentation we gave in the AIDS 2012 Youth-Pre Conference today while sharing a session on best peer education practices with Leo and Jackie:  Youth pre peer_ed_gender_luize_ratniece

View more presentations from jauatkales.

Behind the scenes IX

Yes, we are still missing ALL the fun and stress we got at the AIDS conference, we do...

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

Memorabilia

Some souvenirs we brought home from AIDS 2010:
a pin given by our wonderful Y-Peer friends,
an IPPF pin reminding that it's time to stop the criminalization of HIV,
a Women's Right = Human Rights pin
and few I ♥ Being a Girl pins that we've managed to hide for ourselves and not to give away to all those people who were demanding them...

Oh, popularity is so tough, we should've taken more of those with us!