Time To Get Creative

As of today we currently have two competitions running, yes TWO! One I want to encourage all of you to enter, and the other I want to encourage everybody who's eligible to enter.

First our Speak Out Competition is still looking for entries. Write a blog, video or podcast on an issue that matters to you. The top three entries will be published for a readers' choice vote. Prizes are to be confirmed. You can find more details here.

Second is our new competition for members of Girlguiding Cambridgeshire West. 'Inspired' is a photography competition with the short listed entries going on display in Peterborough Museum from the beginning of September. Entries can come from members of any age (they'll be judge in three different age categories) and should be a photo depicting a person, place, thing or activity that you draw inspiration from.

I'm hoping to organise a fun celebration event for the winners/family/others when the exhibition of works opens to mark the occasion. I'm very excited to be organising an exhibition again, especially one in a museum, and one that hopefully will pass on the inspiration to all who visit it.

When I was doing a life mapping activity during the training days for a WAGGGS UN delegation, I described the goal I was aiming for as 'advocacy through exhibitions'. I'm hoping that this photography show, filled with the amazing photos of local girls and women, will be the first of many in achieving that goal.

All you need to do to help me is enter one or both of the competitions! Today.

How we talk to...anyone.

This is me (in the flowery dress holding the see-saw), aged 5. You can tell that from the useful hat I'm wearing say 'I'm 5'. It was my birthday party, and it was the mid-90s. I'm sure many people told me how pretty I was in my special birthday dress that day.

My partner pointed out this blog post earlier today. It's a great disscussion of how the topics of conversation we use when talking to young girls can set them up with their priorities in life - namely the focus on how they look. It offers up a solution to how we can change that. The blog suggests that when you talk to a young girl, catch yourself, and talk about their favourite books or what they're doing at school as a way to emphasise the value of what's on the inside.

I think it goes beyond little girls though, I think it's about how we communicate with anyone. Yes, girls at a young age are probably particularly vulnerable to that kind of conversation, but what about how we talk to boys? If you're going to try to deconstruct the gender binary and the unequal relations within that, then you have to talk to boys differently too.

And beyond those occasional (if like me you don't live with young children everyday) conversations, there's the communication coming from the TV, from magazines and books, and for older girls and women through social media. You should check out A Mighty Girl for some fab solutions on the first three in terms of reading/watching materials.

Social media is a tricky one. If you post publicly or even within a large 'friend' network you don't know who's seeing what you're saying, what context it's placed within from what all their other friends are talking about, or what things are on that persons mind. Now it's frankly ridiculous to suggest that we never comment on people's photos talling them they look beautiful - because that can make someone's day. But I do think we need to make sure we're using the medium as an educative tool and to build relationships that go beyond looks. And if we approach it from the receiving end to make sure we're getting a balanced variety of content, we're more likely to share things that aren't just about the cosmetic, and in turn we're more likely to be having conversation with other people about what's on the inside.

Having started at my 5th birthday, fast forward just a few years (and then a few more) and we're at the Camp Out event that ran over my 21st a couple of years ago.

I'm back on the subject of Guiding. I think it's very relevant in this case, as is any other uniformed group or situation. When you're wearing a uniform it's not about what's on the outside anymore. I have no statistical evidence, but I think you are much more likely to focus on 'inside' things when your clothing is similar or the same as those people around you. And I want to draw on the Guiding example in particular, because when I wear my uniform in a public situation, the number one question I get asked is 'What's that badge?'. And I get the fun part of explaining the different cool things I've done over the years to get woven patches and little metal pins to add to my clothing. Yes, it's an automatic question relating to what people can see about how I look, but my answer isn't 'thank you I spent hours making my hair perfect this morning', it's 'I have a UN badge on my uniform because through Guiding I travelled to UN meetings in New York and Rio and London and Bali and spoke/facilitated/lobbied negotiators'. Now you can't say that with a haircut.

If we can show people from a young age that they can show what's on the inside by what they wear on the outside, then it'll make it even easier to change that first thing you say to them to be about what's on the inside.

Why I had to unfollow @everydaysexism

If there was a way I new on Twitter of following someone without their posts appearing in my feed, that is what I would do for @EverydaySexism. I had to unfollow them today. I wish I hadn't needed to, because I wholeheartedly support what they are trying to do, their drive to show the world how prevalent sexism still is across our society.

It's just that I find the whole thing triggering. Because so much of what they share has happened to me, and reading those statements brings back all those feelings that I've had to train myself over years to deal with and hide.

**Trigger Warning**

When I was 16 I was walking down the street in Athens, in the middle of a crowd of my friends, and a guy walking in the opposite direction grabbed my chest. I pushed him away. My friends only noticed me pushing him, they questioned what I had done, and when I explained the situation I felt that I was still blamed for my reaction.

That night I had my first panic attack. As an asthmatic from the age of 11 I didn't know what was happening, I felt like I was never going to breathe again. My panic attacks got worse over the next 6 months or so, largely due to a number of other incidents. It's like a blinding white light in your head, the proverbial rabbit caught in the headlights, I'd be unable to function. Like feinting without the loss of conciousness, a complete lack of control over my entire body until something in my head clicked. It's ok now. You can come back.

It's just about a thousandth of that feeling that I get reading the retweets from @everydaysexism, but that's more than I need. I really hope they succeed. That by drawing attention to all these things that are happening in the world around us right now, all these events that are making other people feel just like I did, that we can stop them from happening.

I'm already angry, I'm already frustrated, and I already want to see change. That's why I want to fill my Twitter feed with the solutions and not the problems. I want to be inspired when I log on in the evening, not bogged down in my past emotions.

So if you're not already angry about sexism - follow @everydaysexism. And when the day comes when you feel like you can't see any more reports like the hundreds they retweet every week, do something to stop them.

In the nicest possible way, I want to put @everydaysexism out of business.

Why I wouldn't want to be 'The Apprentice'...

Watching this latest season of the BBC's 'The Apprentice' I am appalled at it's depiction of women in business, well actually I think it's a poor representation of Briton's business acumen in general. As someone said on my Facebook feed this week - I know countless young women who would have done this week's challenge in time for a relaxed lunch!

Now I know it's a contrived reality TV show with the contestants selected for show rather than for actual business skills, but seriously? I'm only thankful that Karen Brady still features as an example of what young women can really achieve in the business world.Where has the diversity of women in business gone? The earlier seasons actually included some women who didn't wear a tonne of make-up and attempt challenges rushing about tottering in high heels. I think we're sending our girls the wrong message by suggesting through lack of diversity that this type of appearance is the only one that business women adopt.

I'm at the end of my first week in my new job, and I'm glad to be back in the workplace. Yes, because it assures me an income and I can move back out of my parent's house. But also because I like to be challenged, I like to solve problems, and I like to be doing something where I can see results and change after a period of time.I've got an opportunity to prove what I'm capable of, and I just hope that the millions of other unemployed young people get a chance to demonstrate that too.

The candidates on the Apprentice often end up proving what they can't do for the sake of making entertaining telly. The huge number of unemployed young people don't have a long employment history to evidence why they should get the job, but they do need the opportunity to prove that they can do it.

I have one bit of advice. Keep trying. Applying for jobs is a skill you learn from applying for a lot of them.

Taking Advantage of Slacktivism for the Post-2015 Agenda

When we talk about a big UN inter-governmental process, that goes on for a number of years, and where ultimately a decision will be made that will affect the future of the whole planet, it's easy to think it'd take a lot of time, effort and prior knowledge to contribute to the discussion. But whereas the MDGs where decided behind closed doors in the UNHQ, where only the most experienced of lobbyists could even attempt to influence the negotiators, the next set of targets are almost at the opposite extreme. If you are a die-hard slacktivist (almost an oxymoron) you can have a say too.

Slacktivism is a colloquial term to describe the behaviour of taking part in advocacy campaigns, usually through the Internet, in a quick and easy way. Liking campaign Facebook pages, retweeting organisations, changing you profile picture for a time or signing online petitions all count as slacktivism. Reading this blog (you probably came to it from social media) I'd guess you are a slacktivist - even if you didn't know it before now!

Some might see the connotations of the terms as negative, as though depicting people who are only half-hearted in committing to a cause, but I think it's an incredibly positive thing. Call someone an activist and it still conjures up images of the placard waving, anti-establishment, full-time (or often a student) campaigner. However, there's a huge portion of the population who don't have the time, money, or inclination to go wandering through the streets of Westminster in any kind of weather. But they still have valid opinions about the world they want to live in - opinions that need to be heard in preparing the post-2015 agenda.

So that's why I think slacktivism is particularly useful in this case - the negotiators need to know what the population thinks, wants and needs, not just the minority with the know-how to get their ear on the floor of the UN. And the UN has created a number platforms to aid the collection of such voices.

MyWorld2015.org is the main one of these. You're asked to rank 6 priorities from a list of 16, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and have their own blog. They must be doing something right as over half a million people have submitted their vote already. One slacktivist to another, I think you should (if you haven't already) help nudge that figure over the 1 million mark. Go on. You know you want to.

give a little bit of demographic data and then, voila! You've helped to influence the global priorities for next development agenda. They're on

For those of you on Twitter who want to follow this discussion, try @post2015 @beyond2015 and, of course, @myworld2015 for a start. On Facebook have a look at www.facebook.com/YouthVoicesUN and www.facebook.com/myworld2015.

10 Inspirations That Make Me Advocate for Equal Rights

Having opened my local paper this morning to find my local MP has described me, or at least a group of people including me, as "gay rights zealots" - I feel compelled to blog about what inspires me to be an advocate (not a zealot) for equal rights. Some of the list below are positive, things or people I want to share or emulate, others are negatives, the things I've seen, heard, felt or otherwise experienced that I don't want other people to. Here we go:

1. Young Women's World Forum 2010

Some people who knew me both before and after this week in October 2010 would probably say that week changed me life - I definitely think so. It was an event organised by WAGGGS to celebrate the centenary and brought together young women from nearly 100 countries to talk about the Millennium Development Goals. I was inspired by the other participants and volunteers, by the atmosphere, by the discussions, and by the guest speakers (see number 2). I was also set the challenge to go away and start a project - that's how Speak Out, Reach Out, Camp Out started. I believe we need inspiration, information and empowerment joined together to enable us to seize our rights.

2. Leymah Gbowee

We watched 'Pray the Devil Back To Hell' on the first night and Leymah Gbowee came to speak in person on the 3rd day. I wrote down several quotes on my developing project plan - "Small Steps, Big Impact, Lifetime Legacy" has stuck with me ever since. Leymah is a fantastic public speaker, and has inspired me on several other occasions since that first speech I heard. If she could face down a civil war to achieve peace for her country, that doing my best to fight injustices in the UK no longer seems such a scary prospect.

3. Experiencing Violence

I've been bullied, spat at, groped, shouted at, and assaulted for various reasons, most of which relate to gender and sexuality, and I've suffered periods of serious anxiety and depression as a result. I don't want future generations to perpetuate this violence, so I want to do everything I can to help people to understand that we all have rights - including the right to a life free from violence.

4. Being told I 'should have been born a boy'

My time at secondary school was dominated by bullying and never feeling like I fit in. I was regularly told that I 'should have been born a boy' because of the way I acted, things I liked, and way I'd have liked to dressed if there wasn't a gendered school uniform. I didn't need to be born a boy, other people need to rethink their definition of what a 'girl' is.

5. Bishop Stephen Cottrell

My secondary school was attached to the Cathedral in Peterborough. I didn't once hear anybody tell me it was OK to be anything other than straight, other than in one of (then Canon) Stephen Cottrell's assemblies. I joined the Cathedral youth group that met in the Canon's house and I actually associated that church with being welcoming and inclusive for a long time. He was very encouraging of women within the church and a great advocate of women bishops.

6. My Partner

Equal marriage and immigration rights admittedly wasn't something I'd contemplated at length before I met my partner. Even in same-sex relationships previously, I hadn't thought about marrying the person I was with. Falling in love with an American means that inequalities of the legal nitty-gritty of both countries become a sudden reality. We want to be together, but politicians with their own agendas are in control of when/how that happens. Having spent most of the duration of our relationship trying to understand various laws we've found a route - but many others don't have the options they should.

7. Hundreds of Youth Leaders

Through the opportunities that Girlguiding and WAGGGS has given me I have met hundreds of inspiring young women and men who are leading change in their communities the world over. I see them using the little space, little resources, and little voice they have to grow, make their voice heard and change lives.They remind me that none of us are alone in this journey to get equal rights. They are all heading to the same destination even if we are taking different paths.

8. Two Young Men

After the last day of the Global Youth Forum in Bali we headed out to one of the many nightclubs on the island. That was where I met a transgender activist from Uganda. I may have had a few too many strawberry daiquiris (it was hot and the ice cooled me down) to remember his name, but the stories he told of what they were overcoming in Uganda, and of the work he was doing to establish a safe house and support members of the LGBT community, really hit home. I had a friend, Harry, in the UK the year before who had committed suicide as a result of struggling with transitioning and the transphobia he faced. Harry had inspired me with some of the vlogs he created and the discussion of transphobia we had in person and on social media. I saw him as tremendously strong and his death left me numb and questioning my own ability to overcome the mental health problems that all too often result from any kind of discrimination. Meeting this Ugandan activist gave me faith, positivity, a belief that we can ultimately overcome this discrimination to achieve equality. It's a journey, not a battle. We will get to equality in the end. It's not a battle to be lost.

9. Girlguiding

While it's easy to point to big events as turning points and inspirations, underlying these is how I got to to that point (i.e. to the Young Women's World Forum). I've been in Girlguiding since I was 5, and I've probably always been a geek. I love learning, and I remember as a Brownie taking home my handbook and actually reading it, doing all the activities I could do independantly of the unit and taking back the filled out pages, presenting them to my Brown Owl the next week. In the process I devoured and took to heart the ethos of Girlguiding and that is still with me. I should be kind and helpful, lend a hand, be a sister to all guides. I completed my Footpath, Road, Highway, and Go challenges before my 10th birthday, moved straight up to Guides and was back helping younger girls soon after my 11th. When you give an 11 year old the responsibility of running games and helping girls with crafts, I think it's logical that 10 years later they're capable of running side events at the UN and helping other young women prepare advocacy materials. We're back to the small steps, but a programme that built up my skills - especially in leadership - and has rewarded and recognised the various challenges I completed along the way has made me confident that I can be successful in whatever I put my mind to. Even if I'm not successful straight away, I've gained the skills to learn from my mistakes and take a different approach from Girlguiding.

10. You

I started Speak Out, Reach Out, Camp Out with little idea of how it would develop or who would be interested. But over the years I've seen the followers of the blog and social media grow and hundreds (if not thousands now) of people take part in the Reach Out and Camp Out activities. That includes you. I'm not talking to thin air, the audience is growing week by week, month by month, year by year. You inspire me to keep going, keep blogging, and keep coming up with activities so that together we can achieve equality and a better world for all.

Thanks You.

The UK and the Post-2015 Agenda

I was asked (well asked by myself) to write this post for the WAGGGS Post-2015 Ambassadors blog which will be hitting a screen near you very shortly. To encourage myself to get it written, Im posting it here to start with and will cross post to that blog once it's set up. I will be supplying the link and directing you all to it in the next few weeks, so keep yur eyes peeled!

Youth meeting with UK Minister for International Development

With David Cameron being one of the three co-chairs of the High Level Panel who have been looking at the potential avenues possible in a development agenda for after 2015, the UK has featured quite heavily in activities to date.

I was at the High Level Panel meeting, in London, at the start of November 2012. We convened as a group of 25ish young people (including 4 WAGGGS and 1 WOSM young women) on the day before the Civil Society Outreach Day (which took place after the actual HLP meeting in London). We were allocated an hour and a half roundtable discussion where we presented statements followed by table based discussions with some of the panel members. We tried to focus on the outside the box ideas and youth lead approaches that had worked in some contexts and could be scaled up to be thought about globally.

On our agenda were education, health – Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Services in particular – employment. The theme of the meeting was household poverty so all of these kind of fitted within that. After the youth roundtables there was a town hall meeting style session where people from the panel said some things, we got to make remarks on the theme, and they gave us a few responses. I stood up to say that gender equality, and particularly women’s rights, needs to be insured in the agenda. And a few others from the youth stakeholders also managed to get to make statements. On my way out of the building after the sessions someone who works for the UK Department for International Development (who organised the London meeting) told me he thought the youth session and participants had been the most engaging and productive part of the day, and was thoroughly supportive of the idea of youth being involved in the rest of the process.

What was the impact of this meeting? I think it was the inspiration to include youth more in the process over the following months.

After that some UK youth from various organisations - as well as the employees of big development charities based in the UK - have been at High Level Panel meetings in Monrovia and Bali.UK organisations have been heavily involved in the Beyond2015 campaign, as well as specific groups for young people like the Beyond2015 Children and Youth Working Group and the Major Group on Children and Youth.

But what about the involvement of the wider public? Other than bits and pieces of media coverage in the international pages of some of our bigger newspapers and online news sites (Guardian and BBC in particular), there's been no real effort that I've seen to involve a cross section of the UK population. People don't see what 'development' has to do with them - even though the UK still doesn't achieve all the targets set out in the Millennium Development Goals!

So what do I want to do? My plans that I would like to undertake within and beyond guiding in my country are: to get more people to vote in the MyWorld survey - you can go and vote here: http://www.myworld2015.org/?partner=WAGGGS; to get people to realise (at least within guiding) that when we talk about development, we are calling for positive social change in the UK too; and to develop the skills of my peers to speak out on the issues that matter to them. I believe that only by giving young people the necessary training to know how to advocate, can we expect us to become fully active in the political process.

I'll keep you posted on how I get on.

This post is now available to view on the WAGGGS website at http://wagggsworld.org/en/post2015agenda/post2015_delegatesblog

Speak Out in Our Competition!

I'm pleased to announce our new competition for all budding bloggers, producers and activists - open to entries as of today! You've got until the 30th June 2013 to get your entries in, so get creating today.

  

If you have any questions drop us an email on the submission address or use the comments field on this post. Submit your entry today to receive a set of Speak Out, Reach Out, Camp Out badges!

Let's Get Technical

My Dad forwarded me this report on a survey conducted in the UK about women in technology related careers. They found that whilst 90% of both men and women working in tech reported to be happy in their career, only 1 in 7 members of any tech team were women.

The report's cover image.

The majority of both women and men think there should be more women working in tech, but there is disagreement about which factors are influencing the current numbers taking up careers in the sector. 65% of women currently working in tech feel that they have been discriminated against at some point in their career because of their gender - probably a big and real factor then.

Despite this a whopping 90% of women working in tech would recommend a career in this sector to other women. As a fast growing sector with potential for more and well paid jobs in the coming years, the question is how do you encourage more women to go into tech?

Roughly 2/3 of their respondents thought their business would benefit from more women working in the industry and, as a well paid sector, evening out the gender balance would help to diminish the gender pay gap that is still prevalent in the UK.

The solutions in the report? Education, pioneers and perception changes. Encouraging girls to study STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths) at school will equip them with the skills and confidence to work in the sector. Then we need to highlight the women already doing it, which in turn will help to change perceptions of tech.

Some sound conclusions there and it's great to hear them coming from inside the sector!

A Not So Brave Makeover

Some followers of our Facebook page will have seen this great image and quote that we shared from A Mighty Girl yesterday. They've been spearheading a campaign to get Disney to undo their princess makeover of the Brave lead character Merida. This was picked up in the Guardian yesterday, and with a Comment is Free article too.

I have to say I have something of a soft spot for this film - I saw it at the cinema twice in fact. And it was the first Disney 'princess' that I've ever really felt any affinity with. I think this quote from Brenda Chapman, Brave's writer and co-director pretty much says it all: "Merida was created to break that mould - to give young girls a better stronger role model, a more attainable role model something of substance not just a pretty face that waits around for romance."

Before and after the 'princess makeover'.

Why, Disney, why do you see the need to turn a character whose main selling point is NOT being like every other princess going in your films, into just another one of those princesses? She is the princess for the 21st century, not some half-century old fairytale idea of how young women should behave.

I remember being a 10 year old and with a group of friends we made up our own fairytale play about royalty and protectors, forces of evil and their Hench-people.I cast myself as the prince so I'd be the one doing the rescuing having the adventure - I didn't want to stand about tied with a skipping rope to the playground fence waiting to be rescued.

Now 12 years later there's a film that allows a generation of young people see that you can be the princess and have the adventure. It's not all about the waiting about looking pretty.

It appears that Disney have now removed the Princess version from their website, but it's not a victory yet. You can still sign on to the campaign at www.change.org/keepmeridabrave.