Before I took part in Girl Kind I would never have had the confidence or self-belief to take part in something I thought was for the smart girls! And I would never have thought of writing a blog post, as I would have been too scared to get it wrong or be judged for it. Yet here I am, sitting at my desk, writing this piece and I’m thinking about how far I have come. I started Girl-Kind as a scared teenage girl who didn’t like meeting new people or doing anything out of my comfort zone.
My Girl-Kind story starts here: every time I think about Girl-Kind, I am so proud of myself for going to collect that letter from my teacher. I knew my friends didn’t want to take part but I still decided to put myself out there.
Girl-Kind is a project that explores the thoughts and experiences of girls in the North East through workshops in schools. During our sessions we talked about the challenges and opportunities young women face today and one issue we focused on was how society judges us. In groups we made our own short, creative presentations and in my group we chose to make an animation about whitewashing and the importance of diversity. This reminded us that we are all different and unique and that’s ok.
Then we were given the opportunity to spend a Saturday with the Young Women’s Film Academy. During this time, we made a short film called "Whispers”. The idea of the film was to show that people often project a different life on social media. Everyone seems they’re living their perfect life online, while in reality things are often quite different.
On October 8th we celebrated International Day of the Girl with our own Girl-Kind Celebration Day. Here, girls from participating schools across the North East joined forces to show that we all have something to offer and that together we can empower the young people of today to shape our future.
Girl-Kind has helped me to find the confidence to take up many opportunities, some of which I could never have dreamed could happen to me a 15-year-old girl from Newcastle. But that’s a story for another blog.
