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.
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.
I imagined the year to be perfect. But one thing that I learned is that things don’t always go as planned. Sometimes I hope that life is a planned event, and that every detail is decided way before our existence: The people we meet, the places we go, the things we do, or even the impact we make. I feel that things would be a lot easier that way. But in reality, things do not work that way. The pandemic hit, and I realized that my final year was not going to be like I dreamt it would.
College is a tricky topic in First Generation applicants' households. There’s always a tension between support and willingness for continuous learning. The feeling of loneliness and abandonment of knowledge about colleges are the norms. When everything was changing around me last spring, I found myself collectively questioning how the college application season will work out for me.
