I am Malala

An education... something that is taken for granted in our society, but something so precious people risk their lives for.

Malala Yousafzai. A 14 year old girl who risked her life for an education. She is now lying in hospital, fighting for her life after being shot in the head by the Taliban simply because she wanted to go to school ... She wanted to go to school, the institution that most of us loathe!
Malala took her stand for the 32 million girls around the world who are denied daily their right to go to a classroom and learn. 

In honour of Malala's advocacy, the 10th of November is Malala day - a day promoting the education of girls! SO help raise awareness on the 10th of November using social media and #IamMalala and get it trending like we got #DayOfTheGirl trending!

To find out more on the Malala campaign visit http://educationenvoy.org/ 
By following the link there's a video that highlights the campaign and the reasons for education to be a human right! 

CHILD + TEACHER = HOPE ∞

Love 

Vicky xx

The Day of the Girl

I know I know, I'm 3 days late in posting this ... Sorry!

Anyway, so as you all know (hopefully) that last Thursday (11th!) was the 'Day of the Girl'

The first international day that has been recognised by the United Nations, that has been dedicated to the "Girl Child'.

The hoped impact of the day was to impact 4 million girls to move themselves form poverty to opportunity! 

Plan's Advert for the Day of the Girl "Winning the war on poverty starts with educating girls" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm4-0LXYLSQ

I can say that the campaign hit twitter hard, with #DayOfTheGirl trending!! Success! And I managed to annoy all my twitter followers all day with my constant posts highlighting the gender inequalities between boys and girls and retweeting as many day of the girl tweets as possible. I even took the opportunity to highlight certain statistics gathered by the "Girlguiding UK Girls attitude Survey' whose results were officially released last Monday!

#dayofthegirl trending on twitter!

Desmond Tutu described the day as  “A day to celebrate the fact that it is girls who will change the world.”

All day, different organisations such as "Plan UK - Because I am a girl campaign", "The Girl Effect" and "WAGGGS Stop the violence campaign" were rallying for publicity. I saw articles on ending child marriage, stopping sexual abuse against women and many many more. It was fab to see girls all around the world being represented and their needs/rights exploited for the world to take notice!

But why should the day of the girl be only restricted to one day a year? Whilst trying to promote this in school, some chauvinistic males in my year stated to me that it was "nice that girls got one day a year out of the kitchen" or "the other 364 days are for males". By the creation of this day have we contradicted everything we stand for? Have we implicitly implied that it is the only day where girls' voices should be heard? Hmm its a tricky thought. Although I do believe it is required, I possibly think a change of name is required as it really doesn't do this excellent opportunity for girls any justice! Perhaps a day of recognition or something along those lines would be a better title ... something to campaign for?! Well I think there are more important issues in the world!

I'll give you some of the shocking statistics that I encountered on Thursday, to show you that this day is a globally important issue!

• 60million girls are sexually assaulted at or on their way to school every year
• 6 out of 10 women experience violence in their lifetime
• "Keeping girls in school is one of the most powerful tools to #endchildmarriage.
• Each year 10 million girls under 18 are married. Today is#DayOfTheGirl, help #EndChildMarriage

Also, some major landmarks were "pinkified" on Thursday to show the world that girl's education is a priority ...

Pinkified London eye!

Niagara Falls!

The Pyramids!

Here are some links to some videos that really reiterate the need for the day that is devoted to girls!

1. The Girl Effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIvmE4_KMNw
2. WAGGGS Stop the Violence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAKtiEFjcnA
3. Plan UK: http://www.youtube.com/watchv=zHu2ydrLadk&list=UUJcCUXoomnA8f355XD3vbWg&index=6&feature=plcp

Love 

Vicky x

 "A girl's potential is explosive-the sky isn't even the limit" 

Nights In...

After a long and busy week (one that was actually shorter than most due to a cheeky exceptional closure!) I have decided to spend my Friday night in, watching movies and eating chinese ... then heading to bed early with a novel - incense burning and green tea brewing. 

These are the calming and peaceful times of rest that I think everyone needs once in a while!

Not going into anything too deep right now, I was just thinking about how blessed I am to have great friends, and the fun times that this new school year has brought. I thought that tonight, I would include some pictures as memories of all the excitement I have experienced in the past month ... Enjoy!

David leaving for Cambridge :'(

Out with the girls

Our Science Team!

All Wrapped up in Guides! 

Rachel giving her phone a bath
 in the dog bowl!

Ice Skating with the Ski trip
girlies! (and Guys)

School Photo Day!

My First ever "Snog" frozen
 yoghurt!

Breaktime treats in the common room!

Love 
Vicky x

PS Remember, this Thursday (11th) is the Day of The Girl!!

Broken world, Broken Laptop, Broken keys...

To begin, I will explain my choice of title. 

Broken laptop, refers to my laptop that is currently taking a mental breakdown in my time of great need for it. Really, it wont switch on and has died due to over use ... I'm very sad about this! :( This will explain why I haven't blogged in a while. Right now I am blogging off my sisters laptop, which is nothing like my own *Weep*

Moving swiftly on, broken keys refers to my car keys which my sister managed to smash, meaning I couldn't get into my car ... smart design!! (obviously invented by a man!) 

My Smashed Keys

Broken world is a simple observation. This weekend I was in London at a Advocate! meeting. Advocate is a youth panel of 14 girls who "discuss and engage people with the issues that girls care about."

Whilst there, we got a brilliant talk promoting the "World Association of GirlGuides and Girl Scouts" (WAGGGS) campaign on "Stop the Violence". It was highlighted to us the inequality that still exists between men and women, and how this was partly due to the media. I have devoted a post to this campaign before and intend to devote a few more because it is a great cause to support.

What I wanted to highlight from the talk that we got, is the fact that we are constantly bombarded by the media on our position in society. We were shown a series of music videos and had to identify the male and female roles in each video. It was shocking the messages that we are subconsciously receiving every time we listen to our favourite artist or watch their music video.

An example is Akon's "Smack that" where Akon, is this powerful man with his expensive car and bad boy status, and is walking into clubs with scantly dressed women dancing provocatively on top of the bar. Or Rhianna and Eminem's "Love the way you lie" where an abusive relationship is shown and the female saying "I love the way you lie" or "I like the way it hurts". It also shows the male role being dominant again, pushing the girl and hitting her, forcing her to do the things she doesn't want to do, or starting a fight because she is talking to another man. A line in the song threatens that if she tries to leave he'll "tie her to the bed and set this house on fire". We also looked at a classic hit by Britney Spears "hit me baby one more time", she wants to be hit?! WHAT?! I sang along to this in childhood! If you remember the music video for this, you will see Britney in her school uniform yet its all very revealing... an example of early sexualisation of girls. 
Although you may have always thought these things to be innocent, its funny how our subconcious works. We are constantly being sent these subtle messages, hidden behind the "norm" for the media, yet when you actually analyse it, it is shocking what we are being fed!

Personally, I fully give my support to this campaign! Its a great one, that addresses issues locally, nationally and globally and is something that needs changed.

A video on the "Stop the Violence" campaign : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAKtiEFjcnA

One last reminder.... Thursday 11th October, which is tomorrow week!, is the international "day of the Girl". This day gives the opportunity to raise public awareness of the differrent types of discrimination and abuse that many girls suffer from. So make great use of your day to advocate for girls rights! Get planning and let me know how it goes!

Love 
Vicky x