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.
She’s the First is a non-profit organization that teams up with grassroots leaders to make sure all girls are educated, respected, and heard. As the co-organizers of The Global Girls’ Bill of Rights®, we stand by Right #5, which states: “All girls have the right to comprehensive sexual education and access to free, quality, reproductive healthcare.”
To uplift this right around the world and rally girls together, our Girl Activist Fellowship’s Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights Committee, a youth-led group in STF, is hosting the Reproduce This: Art Contest. The theme of this Art Contest is "Your Body, Your Choice," and we will be accepting all types of visual art mediums (sketches, watercolors, color pencils, acrylic, oils, etc).
*The only eligibility requirements: being a girl* who is less than 22 years old!
The Reproduce This: Art Contest is an art contest hosted by girls, for girls, and will raise awareness for reproductive rights around the world in a SAFE way. All girl-centered and anti-oppressive entries to the Reproduce This: Art Contest will be showcased on our website, and if that's not enough... Selected entries will be showcased in two simultaneous GALLERY SHOWS located in New York City and Nairobi, Kenya, on International Day of the Girl, October 11, 2023.
Create a difference, embrace your talents, and sign up today! Submit your art today!
Use this link to commit to creating artwork (deadline for submission is August 15): bit.ly/reproducethissubmit
*gender-nonconforming, genderfluid, transfeminine experiences included!
Download the flyer here.
While menstrual stigma has long been a political topic, one Hon. Gloria Orwoba made a very public plea for women’s and girls’ rights this year in a new and different way. A first-time senator, Hon. Orwoba made her way to the Kenya Parliamentary session on 14th February 2023 in clothing that had menstrual blood. She was asked to leave halfway through the session after her fellow parliamentarians requested the speaker to eject her for supposedly violating the house’s “dress code.” Hon. Orwoba’s actions made a strong statement to advocate for free pads for school girls and female prisoners. As a young woman at the forefront of addressing Period Poverty, this was such a relief for me.
Author: Jessica Chukwu
She does not want children
This feels contradictory
Mutually exclusive as if “she” and this particular desire cannot exist at the same time
She knows it’s religion not God that makes this phrase feel
The way it does
uneasy, as if something is out of order
a man would hear what I want and say “that’s out of order”
a woman would hear what I want and say “that’s out of order”
so I guess I’m out of orders
out of rules and restrictions
out of a need to think beyond myself, I guess I don’t have the woman “gene” or conviction
a contradiction
I am a postmodern woman, I have nothing to say to tradition.
it’s Christmas time, the room’s aroma is rich with jollof rice and chicken. My family are gathered around while “fresh prince” plays on the tv. We are laughing, conversing and catching up. A quick fire round of charades begins, the music blasting on speakers soon follows. The afro beats of the early 2000s take us back to our childhood. We sink deeper into the evening. Eating our sugar filled deserts. My aunty starts asking us about our goals, our future, what we think our families will be like, how many children we want. All of us are sitting in a circle like shape, the most intimate where the warmest conversations are born. The cousins are answering, response range from 2 to 5, we are laughing at each other’s answers and envisioning our cousins as parents.
As the gentle laughter dies down again so the next person can speak
I see that the next person is me.
I’m uncomfortable but they don’t know.
I blink and look at my aunty extra hard, maintaining eye contact, willing my eyes to waver so she will know I don’t want to answer. When this quickly failed I prayed to Gaia and hoped some womanly instinct would tell her to move on.
She doesn’t. So, I lie “I don’t know maybe 2 or 3, my aunty shoots a smile my way, nods and moves on to my little sister.
My answer was distant. Impersonal.
“How many children do you want?”, enquiring about secondary desires when you have already gotten my primary desire incorrect.
“How many children do you want?” the question preceding that, whether I even want children is already answered for me and I must accept it.
“How many children do you want?” a question that would like me to speak, a question that silences me.
So, I cannot.
often
a woman is seen as a mother in waiting.
I am a woman, content.
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.
Jessica Chukwu, 19, is from London and Nigeria. “Growing up the stencil that is consciously and subconsciously put onto girls via the media, family, and teachers’ expectations of what a ‘woman’ is, was prominent. The idea that there is a set of outer and inner characteristics that entrench one as a woman is a ridiculous and harmful narrative I am motivated to eradicate. Such notions limit and constrain creativity and freedom, as well as perpetuate shame for those that do not fit into this strict patriarchal mould. I think that is unfair, because creativity and freedom are the qualities that create a fulfilling life. I am passionate about women's rights because I believe women should be able to mould a life of their choosing, with their mind and their wants.” She enjoys writing poetry, and her favorite author is Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie.
Author: Hope Wambui Ochieng
I am a slum girl, sooo what. Being a slum girl does not make me less a girl, iam proud because I know my right of equality.
Going to school using a rug like a pad and oops I stain my dress, pointing fingers and laughter becomes the talk of the day, I gain courage to be strong for I have no one to defend me but am still proud to be a slum girl.
I can't fit in the group of girls, speaking fluent English, with branded clothes and a rich lifestyle but am still proud to be slum girl and cannot complain of what my parents didn't offer to me, could be that is what they had.....let's end period stigma, shame and stigma.
I hope wambui ochieng as a stands for the girl child to get free sanitary towels in my efforts to make this world a better place towards ending period poverty, stigma and shame. Iam I will and I must join sdg 17 in partnership to support sdg
3 for good health and well being
4 for quality education
5 for gender equality
And because iam a slum girl I salute and appreciate those faces that smile back when they hear my name HOPE the slum girl.
#endperiodpovertyandshame
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.
Hope Wambui Ochieng, 12, was born and raised in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya. “I started poetry at the age of 6 years, creating awareness and sending messages of hope. During covid era, as the school were closed down due to the pandemic, I saw girls stain dresses for using rags, and some approached me to talk to mum on their behalf so she could get them sanitary towels.” Hope used poetry as a way to advocate for for her school to provide sanitary towels to girls from vulnerable families . “I took up the task of requesting sanitary towels from well-wishers, organisations and try restore their dignity and respect back. My request is for more well wishers, organisations, partners from all walks of life to come on board, support my initiative and be the change she desires in life.” Follow Hope on Instagram at @hopethepoet.
Author: Sukeji Modi, She’s the First Girls Advisory Council Member
Living in a world where I call my home
Yet I feel marginalized with pain & grieve
Asked questions as to why I felt so!
Society defined me in a way too doom!
I cry and mourn every to live my dreams
Give me a Pen!
Allow me to discover the lioness in me
That can change society and sprinkle a light
Far above all sentiments enacted on me
They call me names and put me in chains
Robbing all my dreams and fantasies
I want to live and make a change
Give me a pen!
Witnessing abuse and denial from school
Abandoned from play and all my games
Kept in dismay behind the walls
Hooked in toxic beliefs and wicked counsels
Kindly break the chain and hear my pen
Give me a pen!!
Perceived as a tool for marriage, a puppet, and less important human
Yet with my pen, I can do wonders
Liberate my world and speak justice
Unleashing all the pain and speaking the gain
The truth of my power and strength of my days
Give me a pen!
Ready to change history
Ready to break narratives
A rising of what empowerment means to every girl
It's every girl that has a pen that step in and brings the change
I need to rise to build myself
Give me a pen!
I dream so big every day
I need a school and a pair of shoes
I need some books and a piece of chalk
I want to read and write my truth
I want to fly and to reach the sky
Give me a pen!
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.
Sukeji Modi Sube, 21, is the Executive Director of Girls' Voices for Change in South Sudan. She is also a girl child activist, public speaker, and a member of the She's the First Girls Advisory Council. Currently, she is a first-year student at the University of Juba studying Medicine. She is passionate about fighting gender-based violence, empowering girls, leadership, creative art, and public speaking. During her free time, she likes to sing, dance and read.
Author: Fatima Hammouda, STF Youth Ambassador
لولا الحياة تعطي ما تعطي
لهديت للمعلم كل صعب المنال
ان ما قدمه لنا من علم ومعرفة
كان له نورا في دنياه
واشكره واقدره واحترمه
على كل مجهوداته التي تحصى ولا تضام
الله وليه في أموره
لأنه صبر وعمل واجتهد
لكي يربي جيولا ،وينمي عقولا، ويوجه شبابا
دمت سالما يا فنان
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.
Fatima Hammouda, 20, is a She’s the First Youth Ambassador from Morocco. As part of the program, she helped create and produce the Power of Poetry campaign! When she’s not studying at university, she enjoys writing poetry.
Author: Fatima Hammouda, STF Youth Ambassador
In the name of God
I start my poetry,
Presented on success,
It's a small word
Formed in Arabic dictionary From 4 words
(N, Jim, Alif,Haa)
Lines of suffering, patience, determination, and struggle,
The desire to reach it increases day After day,
Week after week.....
The dreamy and ambitious person always sees himself at the highest peaks
By overcoming every stumbling block of life,
Every failure and laziness,
And going forward is best seriousness and work.
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.
Fatima Hammouda, 20, is a She’s the First Youth Ambassador from Morocco. As part of the program, she helped create and produce the Power of Poetry campaign! When she’s not studying at university, she enjoys writing poetry.
Editor’s Note: Trigger Warning: sexual assault and suicidal ideation. Olwethu wrote to us because she wanted to share her experience of healing after trauma. She hopes that by sharing her story, other survivors will no longer feel alone. If you have experienced sexual assault, there are resources to help you.
