To make progress toward gender equality, it's essential to invest in girls' education and leadership. On October 3, She’s the First partnered with our friends at Rise Up to host a virtual event highlighting the work of young leaders making a difference for girls in their communities. The event, "The Power of Girls' Education and Leadership: A Spotlight on Africa," focused on the challenges and possibilities of girls' education and leadership in Africa.

Alums from She’s the First and Rise Up programs shared their experiences. During the event, 22-year-old members of the She’s the First Girls Advisory Council, Sukeji Modi and Njeri Gladys, had a meaningful discussion about the importance of local leadership and mentorship in addressing issues like girls’ access to education, teen pregnancy, and period poverty. Sukeji is also a member of our board of directors and an alumna of Crown the Woman, one of our partner organizations in South Sudan. Gladys, who currently serves on the council, is also a graduate of the Girl Activist Fellowship.

Note: this conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Sukeji: Thank you so much to our hosts. It's an honor to be here—finally, our long-awaited evening for us this side of East Africa. Njeri Gladys and I are so excited to be here. We're representing She's the First; you'll learn more about what we do, including our insights, motivation, and the various things that we do.

My name is Sukeji Modi. I am a South Sudanese, but I'm currently based in Kenya, and I'm a board member at She's the First. First, allow me to enlighten my roles at She's the First as a board member. I'm 22 years old. Usually, when we mention the word "board member," people think of an older person who takes that position in any organization. But at STF, here I am today, as a 22-year-old and proudly running the role of a board member. 

I do various things, including representing the board members in the Girls Advisory Council. The Girls Advisory Council is a girls' fellowship for young girls that runs monthly. We have these meetings where these girls are educated and give us their voice on various ideas, and they also cover creative solutions for STF if we have any specific campaigns. So, when it comes to my role as a board member, I actually act as a bridge between the Girls Advisory Council and the STF board. So, taking the voices of the girls from the Council to the board members at STF and acting as a mediator between them. When we have those meetings, they listen to the voices of these girls who run the council. 

So, allow me to pass it on to my colleague and sister, Gladys Njeri, to tell us about her role at STF and what she does. Welcome Gladys.

Njeri Gladys: Thank you so much. Sukeji, thank you first of all for starting the long-awaited evening. We've been waiting for it for so long, but here it is. My name is Njeri Gladys. I prefer being called Njeri because I represent my grandmother. So I always love using her name, whether in the office, on the street, or with friends. 

I come from Kenya, from a rural village called Murang’a. I chose to start my story that way. That's where my dream started because I spent 18 years of my life in Murang’a before I came to the city, where I saw so many people and was exposed to the world and organizations like She's the First. 

I first bumped into She's the First in 2020. They were hosting a Girls First Summit. I was so excited to see an organization that brings out the little girls in us and also raises girls’ voices. So, since then, I have had quite a journey with them. I have been part of several of their programs, and now I serve in the Girls Advisory Council, where our role involves incorporating the voice of girls in their programming and also communicating their decisions by linking them with the girls who serve in our community as part of the Girls Advisory Council. 

It's also a form of mentorship from She's the First, which we appreciate. And looking back to the kind of journey I've had with the She's the First, I would say it's an amazing one. It's always about mentoring young girls to be bold, own their voices, own their spaces, and communicate with the bigger world. Dia [a woman who spoke earlier in the evening] spoke about how she dreams, in years to come, of having girls below the age of 25 in such conversations or in global decision-making spaces. And here I am here, I am 22, and I am making some quite big steps where I am right now. So, your dream is becoming a reality, and I'm so happy to be in this conversation and to see what we all can share. Thank you, Sukeji.

Sukeji: Thank you, Gladys, for being such a trailblazer. So another interesting thing about both of us is that we both have started our own initiatives in our various countries. As I told you, I'm from South Sudan. So allow me also to highlight that I run an initiative known as Girls Voices for Change. It is under the SIHA network, and SIHA stands for Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. So I started running Girls Voices for Change at the age of 19, and that's why, when I hear people say younger girls can’t play great leadership roles, I don't concur with that because I believe when girls speak disruption occurs. When they are honed when the mentorship is given, they can run these amazing initiatives. 

So, with the initiative I lead, we majorly address two things: that starts with girls' education and secondly, menstrual poverty. I come from South Sudan; if you know so well, we are currently tagged as the world's youngest country. Being the world's youngest country, we have a lot of challenges. 70% of our population lives with complete illiteracy. This means when it comes to girls' education, you can imagine the gap that we have. So, being born in such an environment, I personally decided—allow me to quote the great Nobel Prize winner, Wangarĩ Maathai, who said, “I will be a hummingbird.” She said it because the hummingbird was the only animal that accepted to take water to the burning forest when everyone thought it was impossible. Even with a 70% rate of illiteracy in my country, I am not challenged. I believe my initiative is still making change. We do mentorship programs annually, mostly three times a year. We go ahead. We reach out to girls in the rural areas. We read to girls who are already in school. 

In handling menstrual poverty, we also create safe spaces for girls. We educate them on menstrual health in most cases. So because we also have a lot of incidences of teenage pregnancy, simply because girls are militated when it comes to reproductive health, I amplify my voice as one that has been mentored, as one that has that accurate information to be the change that I want to see. So, my long-term vision is to increase the intensity of this program because I usually do it about twice a year. That's when we have the reachouts. But with the gap and the 70% population, this allows for more intense activities to be done from the little I have been doing—that may look little from my side because my dream is so big— but there have been a lot of changes, a lot of tremendous community transformation. That makes me believe that when girls speak, disruption is not an excuse. Changes happen, and girls will always learn from other girls. So, being a champion of a girl-centered approach makes the world align with our vision as girls. 

So allow me to pass it on to Gladys so she can also tell us about Her Voice Matters since she runs that initiative.

Njeri Gladys: Wow. Thank you, Sukeji, for that. And Her Voice Matters is, as it says, giving young girls a voice. So, this is an initiative I started back in 2020. I'm a writer. I love writing journals, articles, blogs and inspiring messages. And recently I have been into designing. And from being a writer and a designer, I see it as a way of passing my message. So back in 2020, in the county where I come from, Murang’a, teen pregnancies were at a record high rate. That was a key issue, and it was something alarming. This was my motivation to start my initiative. 

It basically started as a writing platform. I remember I started on Facebook. I used to write some articles and then maybe share with people on WhatsApp and other platforms just to read. And with time, one of my friends challenged me to change it to a mentorship platform. So that's how I started doing mentorship in schools. When I came into the city, I was inspired to do this in the informal settlement. And this involved first visiting the area and getting the reality on the ground. And it was something worrying. As much as I thought that Murang’a was really affected, getting to these informal segments like Kibera inspired me to do something greater than now, only focusing on Murang’a County. And looking back, we've had projects and maybe programs around SRHR. This is also ensuring that girls have access to comprehensive sexuality education. They have opinions about their body, and I also mentor them to show them how they can own their voice, how they can also own their opinions, and how they can speak about these challenges that they face in their daily lives. 

So we basically focus on SRHR mentorship of these young girls to become the leaders that they've always wanted, and also trying to address GBV among adolescent girls, since it's still something that goes on, and also seeing how we can connect the community and some of these leaders, the leaders I'm looking at the community leaders in that area, and also seeing how they can help them. 

It feels different when a leader hears about a challenge directly from a girl who considers a daughter, compared to when they read this from the newspapers. So, for the last four years, we've been so heavily focused on mentorship of these adolescent girls in primary schools and some of the secondary schools in the informal settlements, and looking at the work we do, my long-term vision is to make this a bigger mentorship platform. My dream has always been this Her Voice Matters initiative, a foundation where all girls around Africa can reach out in terms of mentorship. I greatly attribute where I am due to the power of mentorship that I have had. The people who have had to hold my hand, the organizations like She's the First who have given me such a platform to also be able to achieve what I have always dreamed of. 

So,​​ I envision it as a mentorship platform for adolescent girls and a transition to young women, giving them access to economic opportunities and earning a living. And also, at a time when we all know that when you have money, you have the voice; you hold the power. So, how can we give girls this power? By giving them access to all the basic needs that they require. 

Sukeji: All right, thank you, Gladys. You're inspiring. And I know leaders always have something to tell people. So, just a quick one, since we are time-bound, I really want us to voice all that we have prepared. What advice would you give to young girls who desire to become leaders like you in one or two sentences? 

Njeri Gladys: Wow, I'll do it in three sentences. 

First of all, own your voice. Your voice is powerful. Your voice matters. 

Secondly, be you. Never sacrifice yourself so that society needs you to be; always be you. 

And lastly, live your dream. Actualize your dream. There's that power in dreaming, but also actually dream something big. 

I'm also interested in asking you this question: Sukeji, what advice do you have for these fellow young girls? 

Sukeji: All right, so interestingly, I personally believe every young girl needs to believe in the beauty of her dream because I one day had a dream that I wanted to lead an initiative, and it's happening. 

Secondly, girls should value and look out for mentorship opportunities. It is important. Mentorship makes you what you think you want to become. 

And lastly, they should take part in volunteering because that will make them actualize their dream more quickly. 

So Gladys, as we approach the International Day of the Girl Child, what is your message outside there to policymakers? 

Gladys Njeri: Looking back to something Dia said, girls should have positions in key decision-making spaces; that's something I want to tell these leaders and global policymakers. Allocate meaningful resources that support such policies and allow these girls to be part of these decision-making spaces. As much as we always think that we need a slot for the youth, we can also have a spot for the young girls. That's something of my message to key policymakers. Also, suppose these leaders can heavily focus on allocating resources to such movements, which work towards creating change. In that case, that's something else and also written by young girls because they are currently the custodians of what they go through and what they face, so they know better how to handle and solve their problems.

So, that will be my message for these policymakers. I'm sure you have something different. What's your message? 

Sukeji: All right, I think from my end, I would love to say that policymakers are not experts in girls' problems, never. Because we girls know what we go through, it is us who know what the accurate solution might be. Policymakers can only become allies in helping us achieve what we want.

Equal representation should also be ensured in most global programs. For example, at the Summit of the Future, we had very limited youth representation, so that was a no-no for me, and I feel more needs to be done there. 

So, just to close up, Gladys, thank you so much for all that you have said and for the conversation. And I think from my end, since we have a great spotlight on girls' education and leadership in Africa, allow me to give a few highlights before we leave. 

Firstly, education is a weapon, and especially when we give it to girls, it becomes the very first tool of change. It becomes a catalyst when girls fight for their rights. So, the first thing I want to say personally is let me speak to you from my own experience. When I went to school—first of all, I gained consciousness of what abuse looked like and what protection looks like. So these are two different things. Had I not gotten access to go to school, I would have taken a perpetrator for a safe person around me, but education opens our eyes to know what is safe for us or what is not safe for us. 

And secondly, (education) helps local champions to rise. People in the U.S. may not know me, but people from my locality know me, and they know the things that I do. And I believe all local leaders, all great leaders of today, were once the local champions of yesterday.

In conclusion, allow me to just say that thank you so much, Gladys, for being amazing. We also thank She's the First for giving us this opportunity, amplifying our voices, believing in our dreams, and causing us to be here today. And if you're a girl and want to get involved in STF, you can start a chapter, and from there, we can leverage our advocacy skills together as we move on generally. 

Thank you so much on behalf of Rise Up and of She's the First; it's an honor for us to have all of you here today. Thank you for listening to us. Thank you for being committed to girls' matters. Thank you for accepting to get time to hear our voices and get first-hand information about the issues of girls. Continue to be the changemakers in your societies, continue to seek after each other, continue to create that amazing bond. And I believe from today, this meeting will be a testament to more morale, more energy, robust efforts to go ahead and implement all our dreams and initiatives. Thank you so much.