International Day of the Girl

Posted by on October 11, 2021 in Black lives matter, Blog, Dame designate, feminism, Human rights, Women's equality issues | 2 comments

October is Black History Month, and I was thinking how this dame could mark it in her latest blog, when an email from WOW solved the matter. October 11th is the International Day of the Girl, and regular readers of damesnet may remember how on that day in 2018 I was invited as a mentor to some schoolgirls in the London Eye to help mark the event: https://damesnet.com/?p=6030

WOW is about to publish the second edition of their Young Leaders Directory, so I have selected some outstanding examples of young black female activists out of the 40 that are featured.

Adebola Aderibigbe/Instagram

Adebola Oluchi Aderibigbe

Adebola is an 18-year-old girl child advocate and a member of the Girls Advisory Board of HACEY Health Initiative in Lagos, Nigeria. Her advocacy journey for the rights and equality of the girl child started at 15 when she won the annual essay contest organised by HACEY, ‘What Gender Equality Means To Me’. Adebola has an initiative called ‘Girls Matter Too’ and she is a volunteer member of the Legend Life Skills Foundation, an NGO set up with the aim of equipping young people – especially girls – with skills for success. She hopes to be one of the leading young women tackling Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 5 – Quality Education and Gender Equality – through her advocacy.

Yande Banda/Instagram

Yande Banda

Yande is a passionate 17-year-old girls’ rights activist from Zambia. She is the Co-Chairperson of Transform Education, a youth-led coalition hosted by the United Nations Girls’ Education initiative. Yande is also the youngest member of the Adolescent Girls’ Advisory Council under the Global Fund for Women. In 2019, Yande co-authored an open letter to social media companies, in collaboration with Plan International Global, to end online harassment. This open letter accumulated over 60,000 signatures and resulted in tangible changes in social media policy. She is also an active member of the adolescents’ mobilisation team of UN Women to advocate for adolescent engagement, education, girls and women’s rights issues.

Favour Chukwugolum/Instagram

Favour Chukwugolum

Favour is a 20-year-old Girl Leader, Intern, and Chair of the Adolescent Girls’ Advisory Board at Girls Voices Initiative in Nigeria. Her passion for activism drives her active participation in the Girls’ Rights Movement that has impacted over 800,000 adolescent girls, and through the Girls on the Airwaves project – a digital action campaign to end violence against girls and women that has reached over 200 million people.

Favour represented Girls Voices Initiative to receive the With and For Girls Award in 2019 and served as a member of the With and For Girls Strategic Design Team in 2020. Alongside other girl advocates. they are developing the first girl-inspired curriculum to be integrated into secondary school clubs and empower girls as part of the GIRLEADS Programme in Nigeria.

Kimberley Fusire/Instagram

Kimberley Fusire

Kimberley Fusire is a 16-year-old from Zimbabwe. She has been a child rights activist since the age of 10, when she was inspired to make change after seeing the abuse children in her community were experiencing. She believes that being a patriarchal society, the voice of the girl has always been considered last or not considered at all; and her lifelong goal is to use the gift of her voice and passion to challenge that norm. Over the past six years, Kimberley has been active as the voice of the voiceless in public places and teaches her peers and older people about children’s rights. She was selected to be part of the World’s Children’s Prize Child Jury at 12, and was also nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize.

So there you have four inspiring, empowering young women – I wish them continued success.

2 Comments

  1. Yes we remember that 2018 marking of the event . I’m sure you treasure the experience, Barbara.

    As you say, four inspiring young women. Brilliant.

    • Thanks Joyce!

Leave a Reply to The Dames Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.