Joan Kembabazi is a 25-year-old feminist activist who champions an end to child marriage and girls' education in Uganda. Joan is the Founder and Team leader of Gufasha Girls Foundation and is currently a fellow in She’s the First’s Girl-Centered Incubator.
The latest edition of The Girl Gazette is here! This edition features a powerful poem about girls' leadership, an important essay about a patriarchal community, and artwork that encourages girls to end period stigma and feel good about their bodies.
The Girl Gazette shares girls' voices from around the world who work with our Partner Coalition organizations. Girls from She’s the First’s Partner Coalition express themselves through art, poetry, and essays about their experiences.
Safiya Speaks Up!, the impactful children's book developed by five She’s the First Girl Activist Fellows, is making significant strides in Southeast Asia through the efforts of two of its passionate authors and advocates, Anya Legarda and Allison Choong. It was created to educate young girls about combatting sexual violence and using their voices. Since its digital publication last fall, mentors and parents have shared Safiya’s story with more than 3,000 girls across the globe.
Check out the newest issue of The Girl Gazette: Volume 5, Issue 1 for Winter 2024! The Girl Gazette amplifies the voices of girls globally and empowers them through art, poetry, and more. We highlight girls around the globe who are a part of our Partner Coalition organizations.
Youth Ambassador Gladys Njeri shares her experience participating in the Girls First Summit, She’s the First’s annual event that brings together organizations for knowledge-sharing and targeted training, with local and global insights on best practices for supporting girls’ rights.
Climate Change and its related effects such as natural disasters, rising sea levels, and extreme weather conditions are known to cause significant socioeconomic stresses. As climate change intensifies, it exacerbates existing gender inequalities, deepening poverty and undermining sustainable development goals.
By Desiree Okonkwo, 15, United States
I used to agree and accede,
As they laughed because the teacher turned off the lights,
Giggle and sniffle while tears formed in my eyes,
Embarrassment forever fortified in my mind,
I used to mumble and mutter,
Watching them rip my culture to shreds,
Mocking my family’s accents as they shook their heads,
Inescapable humiliation bound around me like thread,
I used to whisper and whither,
My hands reaching for a straightener at an awful attempt,
At the role of “white girl” that I only achieved when I dreamt,
Depravedly desperate for any skin whitening bleach,
My immense ignominy a life-sized leech,
I used to resent and recoil from my reflection,
Contempt created by my colored complexion,
Nails digging in as I hurriedly scrubbed at my skin,
As if I could scrape away the black to unlock the white within
Playing a game supplied by shame I could never win
I used to detest, but now I accept,
Bewitched by my brown color with a bit of remorse and regret
That I ever allowed myself to be so miserable misled,
That I ever viewed my home and heritage with horrid hatred,
That I ever believed racist rhetoric that was said and spread,
But worst of all, that I ever assumed that my blackness could make me less than.
You may be pondering why a mere high schooler is writing about paychecks when the relevance of a salary to a child's life is minimal; the truth is, I'm terrified of growing up in a world where my work is valued significantly less than my male counterpart. Undervalued to the extent that women statistically earn only 83% of what a man makes. This everyday experience of women across the globe is known as the Gender Pay Gap.
We’re proud to launch of Safiya Speaks Up, a children’s book and mentor’s guide written by girls between the ages of 15 and 21 from the She’s the First’s Girl Activist Fellowship. This “tell-all” is a memoir of the stories behind the book, as well as the memories we shared throughout its creation.
Author: Camille S. Campbell, She’s the First Youth Ambassador
I use my voice to change the world
to help the silent to be heard.
For girls to choose their own path
to spread equality at last.
I use my voice for blocks to burst
for every girl to be the first.
A girl with an education is unstoppable—but barriers like gender discrimination, poverty, and exploitation prevent many girls from reaching graduation. Our Youth Ambassadors created the Power of Poetry campaign to amplify girls' voices about this issue for Poetry Month and the Global Action Week for Education.
Camille S. Campbell, 18, is a She's the First Youth Ambassador (and co-creator of the Power of Poetry campaign!) She's also an award-winning author of four books, including Her Poems: Women Poets Who Changed the World. The #1 Amazon New Release is used in many classrooms. Camille’s writing has been recognized by The New York Times, Girls’ Life, Scholastic, Bow Seat, Penguin Random House, and various journals. She’s an education activist in her home state of Arizona, U.S. When she’s not writing, Camille enjoys silk painting, playing classical guitar, and reading mystery books. You can read more about her on camillescampbell.com.
Author: Melanie, aka MAL
To the little girl who likes toy cars and dinosaurs,
Who likes to get dirt under her fingernails.
You are not any less of a girl.
You feel it in your bones, you feel it when you kick a soccer ball across the field:
You are a woman.
To the little girl who likes dolls and tiaras,
Whose room is drenched in pink from her bed sheets to the wall,
You are not “too girly.”
You feel it in your heart, you feel it when you tie a bow around your hair:
You are a woman.
To the young lady whose head is in the books,
The lady who is sure of her goals, whose dream is her profession,
You are not any less of a woman.
You feel it in your mind, you feel it when you look at the diploma on your wall:
You are a woman.
To the young lady who dreams of a big family,
The lady whose one wish is to fall in love, to have children,
You are not a disappointment.
You can feel it in your blood, you feel it when you hold a sleeping child:
You are a woman.
A girl with an education is unstoppable—but barriers like gender discrimination, poverty, and exploitation prevent many girls from reaching graduation. Our Youth Ambassadors created the Power of Poetry campaign to amplify girls' voices about this issue for Poetry Month and Global Action Week for Education.
Melanie, also known by the pen name MAL is a seventeen-year-old Cuban-American writer and winner of the Scholastic Arts and Writing Silver National Medal in 2022. While writing her novels, she enjoys writing and sharing poetry on social media.
Author: Nova Macknik-Conde
This is for the girls.
The girls who protested,
The girls who picked up a pen,
Moving hearts, changing minds, bringing together thousands,
Using their voices to shout louder than the dissenters ever could,
To show that education is a universal right,
And that they will not stand for anything less.
This is for the women.
The women who knew their worth,
That they were powerful and intelligent,
That they deserved better,
And that they will never be lesser.
This is for the ladies.
The ladies the world over, The ladies anywhere, anywhen, and anywho,
Who stood together and changed the future.
To be a young girl in this day and age,
To look up to these icons,
To have centuries of heroines behind me,
Revealing the path ahead,
Whispering in my ear the truths they upheld so proudly.
A girl with an education is unstoppable—but barriers like gender discrimination, poverty, and exploitation prevent many girls from reaching graduation. Our Youth Ambassadors created the Power of Poetry campaign to amplify girls' voices about this issue for Poetry Month and Global Action Week for Education.
Nova Macknik-Conde is 11 years old and she lives in Brooklyn, NY, U.S., with her parents, her two older brothers, and her two guinea pigs: Cannoli and Snickerdoodle. Nova enjoys writing poetry and fantasy, in addition to being passionate about mythology, philosophy, history, and STEAM. She serves as a Young Reviewer for Frontiers for Young Minds and as a Blogger for Stone Soup magazine. Nova’s writing has been recognized by The Betty Award, the EngineerGirl Writing Contest, the Inklings Book Contest, and Writopia’s Worldwide Plays Festival. Her poetry has appeared in print in Stone Soup magazine, Skipping Stones magazine, and Cricket magazine.
Author: Ilana Drake
news of young women being
unable to attend school in
afghanistan because of the
taliban means the world
needs to fight,
the world needs to fight
for women
because 130 million girls
lack access to education,
too large a number for
us to sit back as we
focus on what we see
as “progress”
rural girls are 2 times
as likely as urban girls
to be out of school and
period poverty means
that girls miss school
and the social determinants
of health interact with
the ability to access
an education and knowledge is power.
A girl with an education is unstoppable—but barriers like gender discrimination, poverty, and exploitation prevent many girls from reaching graduation. Our Youth Ambassadors created the Power of Poetry campaign to amplify girls' voices about this issue for Poetry Month and Global Action Week for Education.
Ilana Drake is a sophomore at Vanderbilt University in the U.S. and is studying Public Policy. She is twenty years old and serves as a United Nations UNA-USA Global Goals Ambassador for SDG 4 (Education).
Author: Melina S. Farahmand
Like a Phoenix, continue to
rise from beneath the ashes,
with the magic that lies within
and take that power to shatter
every glass ceiling and create healing
Within a nation that is too busy grieving instead of dreaming, we are pleading with you,
To rise into the fire filled sky
with your wings created by kings —
Rise like the Phoenix, trailblazer.
A girl with an education is unstoppable—but barriers like gender discrimination, poverty, and exploitation prevent many girls from reaching graduation. Our Youth Ambassadors created the Power of Poetry campaign to amplify girls' voices about this issue for Poetry Month and Global Action Week for Education.
Melina Farahmand is a 21-year-old author, activist, filmmaker, and storyteller from California, U.S. At twelve years of age, she founded Past Present Future Co., a news and media entity to educate, inspire, and cultivate a world in which women’s empowerment and sustainability issues are debated and discussed. Through a vibrant conversation of the relevant problems of the day, Melina believes people can bring about change in their communities.
