During the course of the day, we met with Mayan adolescent girls and their mothers in different communities in Totonicapan, Guatamala. These communities are often far from health clinics and secondary schools and are hard to reach even by car because of the terrain. The joint programs that Girl Up supports are the first programs in these communities dedicated to empowering adolescent girls and providing them with safe spaces. 

Each community we visited has implemented a different type of program based on the needs of that community, but it is clear from all the girls we met that these programs are making an incredible impact on the lives of Mayan adolescents in Guatemala. These programs are helping girls understand the power of their actions, their rights, and the ability they have to be a leader and make a difference. While the change must come within them, the programs are giving the girls the tools they need to be empowered and empower those around them. 

One of the many ideas that resonated with me today was how similar my passions and dreams are to those of the girls that we met. We both desire to have our voices heard and our opinions valued. We both seek acceptance and validation at a time in our life when we are searching for our purpose.  Most of all, we both have visions of change and of hope for our future and for the future of our world. 

I often talk about how Girl Up has given me a platform to use my voice. Being involved with Girl Up has given me the chance to stand up for my rights and the rights of other women around the world. What I realized after meeting with the young women is that these programs are doing the same thing for them as Girl Up has done for me. Programs like these are helping girls in Guatemala to be leaders in their community and the protagonists of their own stories. 

The girls we met with today who have faced unimaginable violence and discrimination inspire me with their stories of courage, strength, and conviction. They do not label themselves as victims, but rather as fighters.They are not only fighters for themselves and for their rights, but also for young women in their communities. 

What’s their message to young women in the United States and around the world? These young women are urging us to hold hands and stand up for ourselves and for our sisters because together we can create a world in which girls and women are equal.

This post originally appeared on GirlUp.org

Me with girls from Santa Maria Chiquimula in a Girl Up-supported program (INSIDER IMAGES/Stuart Ramson)

Have you ever found yourself at a loss for fundraising ideas for an organization or cause that you are passionate about?

As teens, it can be frustrating when we find causes that we care deeply about but struggle to find the “right way” to ask other teens or members of our community to make monetary donations. While bake sales, penny drives, and candy-grams can all be effective ways to raise money through a school community, thinking outside the box and utilizing your networks and resources to mobilize a larger group in support of a cause can be a very powerful tool when it comes to grassroots fundraising.

Last month, the Girl Up New York Regional Coalition had the privilege of partnering with Electronic Recyclers International (ERI), the largest electronics recycler in the nation to support and raise money for Girl Up, a campaign of the United Nations Foundation. As I have previously blogged, Girl Up mobilizes teens in the U.S. to raise awareness and funds for the world’s hardest-to-reach-adolescent girls. Through ERI and the Girl Up New York Regional Coalition, we set up drives in seven different schools in NYC to collect unwanted small electronics such as laptops, cellphones, tablets, e-readers, cameras, gaming devices and ipods. Electronic Recyclers International reconditioned the small electronics collected for resale or recycling in an environmentally proper manner utilizing their certified processes. The profits will go directly to help keep girls safe, counted, educated, and become leaders in their community.

Students promoting the recycling drive to benefit Girl Up.

Although we still must determine how much was raised through this fundraiser, I believe it was already a success because it brought schools together with the common goal of raising awareness and funds by providing an environmentally friendly service to our respective communities. Instead of asking for money, we asked for people’s old electronics that were sitting in desk drawers or under their beds so that we can help girls receive the opportunities they so often lack in many countries around the world. Seems like a no brainer, right? This model of combining the efforts and resources of different people and organizations allows for funds to be raised more easily by larger groups while simultaneously raising awareness about a cause.  Always remember that while alone we are strong, together we are stronger.

**Stay tuned for a toolkit so that you too can organize an electronic recycling drive in your community to benefit Girl Up**

I am a cheesy quote lover, and I have a collection of favorites that I tend to throw in to speeches or papers because they often get a point or an emotion across in a short but powerful couple of lines.

This one in particular stuck out to me. I have seen it on Facebook and Twitter posted, reposted, tweeted, and retweeted and every time I read it, I am reminded about the importance of living life to the fullest.  These are the words I hope to live by everyday and words that I believe everybody should keep in mind. I think people, especially teens, forget that they can be difference makers sometimes even unknowingly, and I have realized that making an impact doesn’t necessarily mean helping a whole community. You can have an impact every day if you wake up each morning with the goal of making someone else’s day just a little bit better.

Happy Sunday!

The MLK Day of Service is a part of United We Serve, the President’s national call to service initiative. It calls for Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to our most pressing national problems.

January 21, 2013 will mark the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday. This milestone is a perfect opportunity for Americans to honor Dr. King’s legacy through service. I encourage you all to find out ways you can help out in your community tomorrow. Make this day off from school meaningful!

To learn more about what you can do in your community, visit http://mlkday.gov/#

What will you do in honor of National Day of Service tomorrow?

Join students from across New York City who are passionate and determined to help ensure that all girls have access to stay safe from violence, see a doctor, receive an education, and be a leader for a very special screening of this film that will not be in theaters until March 7, 2013. A panel discussion will follow the screening. More details on panel to follow.

Date: January 25, 2013
Time: 6-8pm
Where: The Hewitt School (45 East 75th Street)

The event is organized by the Girl Up New York Regional Coalition, a collaboration of all the Girl Up clubs in the metropolitan area and who are living Girl Up’s motto,
“While we are strong, together we are stronger.”

Girl Up is a campaign of the United Nations Foundation that works to mobilize teens here in the U.S. to raise awareness and funds for the world’s hardest to reach adolescent girls. www.girlup.org

Please RSVP to Sofia.Stafford@mac.com. I hope to see you there!

Khadija is just like me. She also has a teacher who believes in her. The difference is that Khadija is a 15-year-old girl in Malawi who was supposed to get married to a man much older than her.

Right before Khadija was forced to marry, one of the teachers at her school intervened and worked with a local organization that Girl Up supports to prevent Khadija from an early marriage.

Both Khadija and I are able to do well in school and positively impact our futures because of the investments our teachers made in us.

So what can you do?

When you give to Girl Up on Crowdrise this holiday season, Dell will double your gift! Donate today and make your contribution twice as nice.

With your help, we can double the important work being done through United Nations programs that provide education, leadership programs, and health services.

Invest in a girl. Invest in the future!

I recently had the honor of attending a dinner at the home of Liesel Pritzker Simmons to raise awareness about Girl Up.

I met powerful, inspirational women who are dedicated to helping adolescent girls and closing the gender gap. The women at the dinner are leaders in their respective fields (banking, venture capital, cosmetics, law, film-making, philanthropy) who also support organizations like Girl Up so that they can help empower the next generation of leaders here in the United States.

After dinner, Gina Reiss-Wilchins shared a story of a young woman she met in Ethiopia, who was able to escape early child marriage, stay in school, and become an empowered member of her community because of United Nations programs that Girl Up supports. Gina underscored the importance of Girl Up’s role in creating the next generation of women leaders.

The evening continued with a “fireside chat,” during which I was interviewed by Abigail Disney, American filmmaker, philanthropist, and scholar known for her documentary films focused on social themes, specifically those relating to girls and women. Ms. Disney asked me about my involvement with Girl Up, the work and impact of the campaign, and how young people can get involved. Ms. Disney’s questions were thought-provoking and gave me a chance to share my message. In the end, when Ms. Disney asked me what my vision for the future is, I realized that the simplest way to answer the question was to say the Girl Up motto, “while alone we are strong, together we are stronger.”

My fellow Teen Advisors and I, and Girl Up supporters around the world, are living this motto today, but I envision a future where everyone is working towards creating a world in which girls are equal to boys, not at advantage or at a disadvantage, just equal.  That we have the same opportunities to pursue our passions, and that we have the one thing that no one can ever take away from us: what we carry with us in our heads.

Starting Friday evening I tried the traditional volunteer route:  New York Cares, Red Cross and other traditional charities. They just wanted donations of money. They needed volunteer profiles filled out that would be reviewed in a week. Donations of time or materials were too much to handle. But the pictures from social media and the press indicated that help was not getting out to Far Rockaway or Staten Island.

I searched Facebook and Twitter for people collecting canned food and supply donations. People were willing to give supplies, but it is one thing to pull some cans from your cupboard and it is something else to actually get it to the place that needs it and into the hands of the people in need. A local NYC Council Representative from Queens had accepted emergency supplies all week at their office but had no way to get the items to people in need.  Mega charity organizations didn’t want them.  No one had gas. My parents had, prudently, kept our car filled with gas and we just showed up at the office of City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer and filled our SUV with supplies donated by his constituents and drove towards the Rockaways. The scene got more apocalyptic as we neared the shore. Boats in the middle of the road. Destroyed homes. Deep sand in the paved roads. Wet contents from inside homes piled on the street and bulldozers carrying it all away. I wondered if it would have been better to just text $10 to the Red Cross. There was an American Legion Hall on Broad Channel Drive accepting donations and giving out supplies, but you needed a car to get to it and any cars in the Rockaways when Sandy hit was flooded with sea water and would not start. For a minute I thought about dropping off our canned food and batteries and other precious cargo and turning around. I was determined to get to the public housing projects in the Rockaways where people had no car and my hunch told me were in greater need than the people able to drive or walk to the American Legion.

We arrived at the makeshift supply drop off spot at Sal’s Deli on Beach 113 St. Sal had lost his business to the storm surge, but since he had shelving he was letting residents come in and “shop” for free for donated supplies. Sal was already my hero. He lost everything, but 5 days later he was still helping his increasingly desperate neighbors. He was hearing heartbreaking stories of people on the East end of the peninsula, the poorer end, not getting any help. Diego, who had no formal role but spoke in confident way that people instinctively follow, agreed and we arranged a caravan of 5 cars to take extra supplies. We wanted to “franchise” Sal’s Deli.  But where? We needed a place we could store supplies overnight even if we set up shop outdoors. We decided to focus on houses of worship, specifically those still standing.

We drove past National Guard Humvees with armed troops. Some were pumping out water.  But there was no sign of the Red Cross or any other charity distributing supplies. We found the Full Gospel Tabernacle at Beach Channel Drive & 42 St next to rows of those bleak 15 story public housing projects that were without power. The Pastor agreed to let us set up on his front yard and provided the folding tables that in better times are used for church pot luck dinners. We gave him bottles of bleach and other cleaning supplies so his few grateful parishioners could continue to clean up the inside of the storm damaged building.

We set up tables with the donated supplies. We sent a “marketing team” into the lobby of the public housing project so that people knew it was worth walking down 10 flights of stairs for what we had. …then the “customers” showed up. First a trickle, then in droves. The residents were incredibly grateful since even the best prepared ones never thought they needed 5 days of water and food and batteries in NYC! We then took to Social Media and got people to start bringing supplies directly to our relief site. Rather than just take their drop offs we would ask them to stay and sort and have face to face contact with our “customers”. Sometimes they would agree to make the risky run back to Sals as we restocked throughout the day.

Hundreds of families got what they needed for a few more days till the power could come back on and stores could reopen and restock. It was an exhausting day but we had given out everything (except those fancy sofa throw pillows that someone had thought would be a good disaster donation). Late in the afternoon I realized I had not had a bite of food or left my fold up table for even a minute to go to the bathroom. My discomfort was alleviated by hugging a woman who was  happy to find baby food and diapers, and shaking the hand of a man who said the twelve D batteries I handed him would keep his lantern on a few more nights.

It was Organic. Spontaneous. Grass Roots. In the days after a disaster, there are people willing to help and lots of donated supplies, but the mega charities can’t move fast enough to harness these resources. You just have to ACT BOLD. My parents are both serial entrepreneurs and I have learned from them what a small band of committed people can accomplish while a Fortune 500 company is still drafting memos.

A family friend who works for the Red Cross read about our efforts that day. This was his post on the photos I posted on Facebook:

So glad you were all able to make it out there and it sounds like you really made a difference in an area with desperate need! After everything settles down, would love to do a chat to hear more about the grassroots efforts you participated in. I think a lot of the larger relief organizations and institutions, from NYC OEM to the Red Cross can learn a lot going forward from you.

With all the damage and devastation Sandy has brought, I think it sheds a light on the issue of climate change and its catastrophic effects on our world. New York Governor Cuomo said on Tuesday that he told President Barack Obama it seemed like “we have a 100-year flood every two years now.”

“These are extreme weather patterns. The frequency has been increasing,” he said. Hopefully, this storm will encourage others to join the conversations about climate change so that together we can ensure a better, safer future.

Flooding on First Ave. in NYC

NYC cabs submerged in Hoboken, NJ.

Want ideas on how to help?

• Donate to the Americares Emergency Relief Fund as Americares works with their response partners in the US and Haiti to help provide immediate aid:

http://www.americares.org/newsroom/news/hurricane-sandy-emergency-outreach-update-1029.html

• Volunteer at a New York City shelter set up for the storm:

http://www.google.org/crisismap/2012-sandy-nyc