GlobalGirl from Greece gets credit in The Guardian

We are proud to announce Andriana Theochari, one of our global girl reporters from Greece worked on a photo-journalism project this summer about the devastating wildfires on the Greek island of Evia, with award-winning photojournalist Gideon Mendel. Their work garnered a huge spread in the U.K. paper, The Guardian, and has gone on to be featured in photo festivals. Stay tuned for more from Andriana! She is a rising star!

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NEWS

GLOBALGIRL UNEARTH PROJECT A GREAT EXAMPLE OF GENDER LENS INVESTING

By Amie Williams — 5 years ago

“Too few girls have the chance to make decisions about any aspect of their lives – whether they can stay in school, whether and what they can study, when or who they marry, accessing health care, and if and where they can see friends,” Swatee Deepak, director of With and For Girls (WFG) says. WFG is a funding collaborative that seeks to shift the scales of power in teen girls’ favor. It gives financial support to girl-led and -centered groups around the world and engages young women in participatory grantmaking panels. This means, every year, former winning organizations train teen girls to choose the next prize recipients. As we’ve pointed out, girls and young women ages 10 to 24 make up 12.5% of the world’s population — around 900 million people total. But, less than 2 cents of every international aid dollar goes to campaigns directed toward girls in this age group.

Deepak says working with girls to address this gap is a worthwhile endeavor for funders. “Though meaningfully engaging girls in decision-making takes time, the learning, insights and benefits for us as well-known funders have been incomparable to other forms of grantmaking. Observing the critical analysis and contextualization of issues and approaches amongst 16-year-olds in the girls’ grantmaking panels blows you away.”

Putting Girls in the Grantmaking Seat

WFG awards grants in five regions; Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, the American continent and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. It gives out flexible annual awards ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, depending on the budgets of winning organizations, along with other grants and supports. So far, it has awarded close to $3 million to 60 girl-led and girl-centered groups in 41 countries.

In October 2019, panels of adolescent girls between the ages of 14 and 18 from each of the served regions will meet to interview shortlisted organizations for the annual WFG award. The panels will choose up to 25 new winning groups.

WFG’s members are EMpower, FRIDA, Mama Cash, NoVo Foundation, Plan International UK, Comic Relief, Stars Foundation, the Global Fund for Children, Nike Foundation, Purposeful (the Collective’s current convening partner) and, as of July 2019, the Global Fund for Women.

Purposeful is a grassroots-based organization and movement building hub for teen girls headquartered in Freetown, Sierra Leone. As previously reported on Inside Philanthropy, Purposeful carries out research, convening, participatory grantmaking for girls, and media campaigns. Before moving to Purposeful in 2018, WFG was housed at the private Stars Foundation since it launched in 2014. We asked Deepak how the transition to Purposeful was going. She says it’s “been an incredible journey so far.”

“WFG and Purposeful have such aligned missions and new ways of doing things; collaborative, participatory decision-making, amplifying girls’ voices and, with Purposeful’s unique Global South-led and locally rooted approach, I see so much opportunity for continuing to carve a bold new path that our sector is so desperately looking for,” she says.

New Grants in the WFG Pipeline

WFG is launching three new grants this year. The first is the Visibility Fund, which will pay for current award winners’ travels to global events, peer spaces and conferences. Deepak says this fund aims to ensure “grassroots girl leaders have the space, opportunity and platform” to share stories, access resources and find new connections and partners.

The second new fund is the Collaborative Action Fund. It provides opportunities for winners to engage in cross-sector and cross-border partnerships. Deepak says it is “a game-changer, and I want every funder to give their grantees information and contact details of other grantees, and funding to collaborate!”

One example of a team effort this fund already supports is the Unearth Project by BRAVE in South Africa, GlobalGirl Media in the U.S. and the Samburu Girls Foundations in Kenya. These organizations are using $15,000 from WFG to find, train and support Kenyan girls in becoming storytellers and advocates, both on behalf of their teen communities and for African wildlife. Participating girls will create multimedia narratives centering on issues like child marriage, education, female genital mutilation (FGM), sexual violence and reproductive health care.

“Since joining Unearth in late April, I have united with my sisters from across Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania in fighting against early marriage, [FGM] and beading,” Lekaasia, a 17-year-old Unearth participant, says. And, in partnership with Save the Elephants, the young women will receive education and training related to anti-poaching efforts, conflicts between wildlife and humans, and conservation practices. Lekaasia has learned about “access to clean water for both girls and wildlife, and employing more women in conservation jobs like rangers, researchers, even conservancy owners and managers.”

The third new grant is an opportunity for a secondary round of financial support. With girls again positioned as decision makers, previous winners will be chosen to receive additional flexible funding.

Ramatu Bangura, NoVo program officer, explains the benefits and importance of backing participatory grantmaking for teen girls. “We need girls’ perspectives if we are to dismantle all that comes with patriarchy, and we cannot do that until they have the freedom and power to make decisions that matter to us all. We are a member of [WFG] because we want to be in better practice of listening to and learning from girls. We want to support a philanthropic sector that does the same.”

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Philanthropy Women covers funding for gender equity in all sectors of society. We want to significantly shift public discourse, particularly in philanthropy, toward increased action for gender equality. You can support our work and access unlimited and premium content with one of our subscriptions.

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NEWS

GGM ANNOUNCES VIDEO SERIES RESPONSE TO CORONA CRISIS

By Amie Williams — 5 years ago

GLOBAL GIRL MEDIA LAUNCHES YOUTH VIDEO SERIES: CORONA #IRL

16 Stories from 8 countries

from young women, ages 15-22, sharing their lives during Covid-19

GlobalGirl Media has mobilized its reporter alumna base to produce a video series documenting COVID-19 history from a young woman/girl’s point of view, CORONA #IRL (In Real Life.) The full impact of these times cannot be documented without the perspective of our youth, especially those from under-reported populations and regions such as South Africa, Kosovo, refugee camps, homeless shelters, and inner-city Chicago. This unprecedented series tells the stories of how the girls, their families, friends, and communities are dealing with the pandemic, “social distancing,” and the societal inequalities highlighted during the Covid-19 crisis.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE EMAIL: [email protected]

“Working with these young women over the last 6 weeks as they’ve gone from pitching their stories, to filming, shaping and editing their stories, all while facing the acute challenges they endure under the COVID-19 pandemic has been a powerful experience,” says Amie Williams, co-founder of GlobalGirl Media. “It is part counseling, part mentoring and a large part, for me, understanding the deep and profound ways these girls’ lives are being affected,” she continues.

The stories include a non-functioning domestic violence hotline in South Africa, a refugee forced to move from her camp in Berlin, the collapse of the Kosovo government in the midst of the pandemic, a single teen-age Mom in Chicago trying to hold it together, a Guatemalan girl dealing with her Grandmother’s death, and an East Los Angeles young woman interviewing the homeless and incarcerated. All the reports are raw, heartfelt, vulnerable and reflect the very real ways the girls are living and responding to the crisis. Keeping within the safety constraints of social distancing, the young women have used their phones and basic equipment to document the hope, friendships, creativity, challenges and accomplishments, from their homes, in refugee camps, inner cities, rural areas and suburbia.

As the news from mainstream media continues its important coverage of the epidemic, the girls’ perspectives will offer an intimate and personal look at the effects this worldwide state of emergency has had on youth. For some girls, being quarantined at home is a time to binge watch movies and have fun with friends on TikTok. But for most girls around the world, they are serving on the frontlines of protecting themselves and their families from economic and health disaster.

The GlobalGirl Media series, Corona IRL, will highlight the challenges, successes, new ideas, and hopes of a generation that is proving itself vital in leading the change we want to see in the world.

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NEWS

UNDER THE LEMON TREE

By Amie Williams — 5 years ago

A bittersweet good-bye to life as a refugee girl in Greece

“ I love my Greek school, it’s the first time I’ve ever really felt safe and welcome at school,” Adele tells me as we walk together towards the station for the metro she takes to school every day, showing me her route. But she soon may have to leave the school, due to anti-refugee policies fomented by the new Greek government. Adele is seventeen, an Afghan refugee who also spent time in Iran before making the difficult journey to Greece. “In Iran they don’t treat you nicely if they know you are Afghan, and for girls it’s even worse.” This was one of the many reasons she and her family decided to move again, this time trying to make it all the way to Europe. As I listen to her talk about almost drowning in a river before getting on an overcrowded life raft to cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey, I myself slip and fall off the sidewalk into the street. I’ve been doing this a lot in Athens, where the pavement is not only ancient, but uneven, and in many places just plain broken. It’s actually a local joke among Athenians, how bad their sidewalks are, and learning to walk on them, which requires a creative combination of agility and patience, is an apt metaphor for what many refugees have faced once arriving here.

Greece’s recent national elections pushed forward a far-right political agenda, unseating the increasingly unpopular Tsipras with the much more conservative Nea Demokratia Party, which many people blame on the refugee crisis. At a recent meeting in Brussels, the party’s leader and Greece’s new Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis told members of the European People’s Party that a first priority should be protection of Europe’s borders and that “Greece needs to start talks on how more refugees can leave the country.” At the very least, his election delivers a decisive blow to Tsipras’ more progressive and humanitarian migration policy.

Adele and her sister Karima, at their City Plaza Hotel room, days before it closed

Writing just a few weeks after the closing of City Plaza is not without irony. “Plaza” as residents there refer to it was a defiant oasis for refugees in a mess of broken policy and promises, a social experiment, a cooperative, a place where migrants lived alongside Greeks, students, volunteers. It was more than just a worn, 3-star hotel squat in the center of Athens, it represented a “chink of light,” the title of a poetry book Adele and other girls at Plaza started writing with help from a British volunteer. She and her family lived there, along with at times up to 400 other families and volunteers from all over the world, who taught her how to cook West African food, how to speak Greek, English, even advanced mathematics, and most important, a kind of feminist consciousness I have never seen manifest in a girl this young, uprooted from everything she knew and now participating in massive refugee rights marches, decorating banners or celebrating International Women’s Day.

Adele is one of four sisters and fourteen family members who lived at Plaza, and they sensed their lives would soon be uprooted again. “No one knows when, they just know it will happen…” Adele told me, one week prior, cutting up pieces of latvaka, a coveted Persian sweet made from dried fruits her eldest sister has sent her from Iran. “All the girls in Iran love this,” she says, perched on the edge of one of two single beds she and six other siblings had been sharing for over a year. She offers me a piece and I take a tentative nibble. My mouth immediately explodes with sour apricot, and some other taste I can’t quite pinpoint. “Kiwi, I think you call it,” she giggles, clearly proud of her translation abilities. Unlike her other sisters, her English is advancing at impressive speed, I am sure due in part to the Greek high school she loves, but also Adele has something I’ve been noticing from other young female refugees here: a fierce strength and resolve to stay put and make the best of things in Greece, a country that was until recently considered a pass-through place.

Since June, 2016, the borders have been closed, due to the EU-Turkey Deal, which was supposed to create an orderly and fair system for certain refugees to return to Turkey in exchange for 3 billion euros from the EU that Turkey would use to improve conditions for them. Called a “blueprint for despair” by Amnesty International, it has ended up trapping over 70,000 asylum seekers on Greek islands and in urban camps that have turned into squalid detention centers.

Conditions had deteriorated so badly on the islands, that when the Qias family arrived two years ago to the Moira Camp on Lesbos, they were shocked. “I didn’t dare go to the bathroom at night,” her older sister Karima told me, “really bad things happened to girls there.” The Qias sisters also witnessed nightly clashes between different refugee communities, one resulting in death. When Karima went to try and get baby formula for her brother’s child, she was told it was only for Syrians. It was all too much for the sisters, so they decided to go on a hunger strike. After twenty-four days subsisting on juice and energy drinks, the sight of teen-age girls starving in the cold on Sappho Square caught the attention of international media. “Besides, they needed to move us to make way for their annual Christmas tree decorations,” Karima laughs bitterly. So the family got the coveted blue stamp from UNHCR that allowed them to leave the island and go to Athens, where they were given accommodation at City Plaza.

According to a report by the International Rescue Committee, listening to girls and women affected by conflict is the most fundamental step in providing solutions. Women migrants and refugees are finding allies in Greek NGO’s, volunteers and women-led initiatives that are providing shelters, safe spaces, language classes, healthcare, counseling and legal help. As opposed to hate-mongering media reports driving nationalist trends throughout Europe and the world, a recent study by the Anna Lindh Foundation found that the refugee story is more of cultural convergence rather than difference. Populations are citing a “shared way of life and hospitality” that far outranks narratives of instability and sources of conflict. Many Greek women have started to participate in the advocacy and activities of migrant women, setting up shelters and NGO’s. Strong bonds are being formed as women come together in educational settings, language classes, business development projects, etc.

Adele learning the camera with her team of Globalgirls

Together with the Greek photojournalist Louisa Gouliamaki, we ran one of these classes, a film and journalism training, with funding and assistance from The Melissa Network, the Adobe/Taking It Global Fund and the iMedD Project, a journalism incubator in Athens, where I first met Adele and Karima. They never missed a class and always showed up on time, eager to work. Over the course of six weeks I watched them pick up the camera and explore their lives with that rare, intrepid curiosity that are the markings of an artist in the making. Adele taught herself Final Cut Pro in less than a day. She kept asking me to take the camera home with her at night, and she started making a video for a crowd-sourcing campaign to raise funds for the family to be able to find an apartment, once City Plaza actually closed. She then teamed up with another girl in the training, Mahmonir, who was a close friend and schoolmate.

Together they wrote, filmed and directed UNDER THE LEMON TREE, a beautiful, poetic testament to the solidarity of two Afghan girls, and how they found hope, safety and acceptance at their Greek school. The principal loved it so much he sent it to the Minister of Education and it played to the entire student body on World Refugee Day.

screen grab from Adele and Mahmonir’s short film about their Greek high school

Adele and her best friend Mahmonir, the creators of the short documentary, UNDER THE LEMON TREE

But Adele’s dream of graduating from this special high school will never happen. As I write this, the family has already bought tickets and is planning to leave for Brussels. After a torturous few weeks, the family concluded they were better off leaving Greece and trying, once again, to start over. We had a hurried good-bye, trying to put the finishing touches on a video for her older sister, Shafi, who will remain behind with an older brother because she has a job as a seamstress and a fledgling clothing design business, and they couldn’t afford for them all to go. Adele was making another crowd-funding video to help Shafi mount a fashion show. We never finished the video, and I scroll through the footage, tears in my eyes. I note a perfect shot of an old sewing machine, lit up by the sun, streaming through the workshop window. Although I know Adele will shine wherever she goes, I can’t help thinking Greece just lost a unique and precious resource, and one that would have made walking on these broken sidewalks a lot less difficult.

Post-script: I just recently received a Whats App message from Adele, who is settled in a refugee camp in Alsemberg, Belgium now. She is on the lookout for a new school and promises me she will continue to study film if she can find the opportunity.

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NEWS

KOSOVO GIRLS DEFYING ISOLATION LIMITS

By Amie Williams — 5 years ago

We’re excited to share an article from GlobalGirl Media Kosovo. Despite the isolation these girls face–many of the girl who work with GGM Kosovo have never even travelled outside Kosovo–their voices have been heard internationally through their work with GGM. Written by and about young women, this article focuses on five girls from across Kosovo, all of whom have achieved international recognition, despite the difficulties of travelling outside Kosovo.

In spite of the country’s visa isolation, Kosovo’s ambitious and passionate girls are breaking cultural and societal limits, showing that hard work can pass through any barrier.

Here is a snapshot of some of these girls.

Mrika Sefa: Pianist

Mrika Sefa in Casa da Musica, Porto, 08.07.2018. Photo credits: Alexandre Delmar.

Mrika from Gjakova, is a 26 year old young woman, who began playing the piano when she was nine. Her passion for the piano began in her familial settings, where she was always surrounded by music.

“Music was part of our family luncheons and dinners, our festivities and even our most somber moments. My uncle, Florent Nushi, was a singer. He would sing as if he would talk. I always believed that the guitar was an extension of his body. And, just like this, my brothers, cousins and I would join him in singing. In the beginning I would sing and later on I began taking piano lessons.”

As a fourteen year old, Mrika began facing life’s challenges alone at the Prishtina Music High School. She was a regular participant in many concerns, among them the international music competitions organized from the “ArsKosova” Foundation. These competitions, during her childhood, she said, have really been a significant contributor to building her discipline and her work ethic, which led to her continuing her higher education at the “Musik-Akademie der Stadt” in Bassles, Switzerland, in “Hochschule der Künste” and “Hochschule für Musik” in Lucerne, Switzerland.

“Beginning my studies in Switzerland has not been easy, since there is no easy transition from Kosovo to Switzerland. They are two completely different realities”.

Yet, she has managed to partake in the “Yamaha” competition in Bern, where she won first prize. In the “Concours Musical de France”, she also won second place.

“I was very happy with these results, given that during my journey everything went wrong. Prior to joining the last competition, it seemed as if I was living a Federico Fellini screenplay”.

Mrika’s successes continued even at the “Hella Siegrist Wettbewerb” competition in Lucerne, where she was awarded with the “Special Mentioned Performance”.

She is currently working in a dual chamber music project, titled “DuoLitanei” with the portuguese cellist, Hugo Paiva.

Hugo Paiva and Mrika Sefa during their photoshoot, Porto, July 2018. Photo credits: “Rui Bandeira fotografia”.

Hana Arapi: Entrepreneur and Designer

Hana Arapi during BootCamp at Social Impact Award, 30 September 2018. Photo credits: Drilon Balaj.

Hana Arapi is from Prizren, but moved to the capital of Kosovo, Prishtina, to pursue her master studies in Graphic Design and operate a startup called “Amam Studio”, a creative animation studio.

Juggling two different engagements hasn’t been easy for her, especially in the last year. Hana had only 36 hours to prepare for opening up her last exhibit at the Prizren Hamam, while also starting up “Amam Studio”.

“Starting up a business has been a great challenge, but I have learned quite a lot, and I have had the chance to dedicate myself to many things that I have a huge interest in”.

Hana is also a founder of the “Videosinteza” an alternative education platform, which uses illustrations and animation to discuss various topics from science, technology and social sciences. The purpose of these videos is to engage, raise awareness and inform.

“The idea for creating Videosinteza came about from our desire to use design to have a positive social impact.”

Creating one episode for “Videosinteza” takes about 150-200 hours of work. With the “Videosinteza” project, her team is now part of the Innovation Centre Kosovo (ICK), where they are working to find alternative forms for making the product more accessible.

Hana hopes to contribute to breaking down barriers, injustices, stereotypes, sexism and violence that prevent women from achieving their potential through her initiatives and activities.

She is using entrepreneurship as a channel to step-by-step alleviate the barriers that women face and is highly inspired from her mother, who has built the strength in her over her lifetime to be able to face the challenges on the way.

Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society during her visit at Innovation Centre Kosovo and Hana Arapi presenting videosinteza. 11.10 2018, photo credits: Innovation Centre Kosovo.

Rita Zeqiri: Athlete

Rita Zeqiri, swimmer, representing Kosovo at Olympic Games. 7.8.2016, Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

The 23 year old “iron-woman” from Prishtina has been swimming since she was nine years old. Ever since she was a child, she has been known for her athletic spirit.

“What makes sport difficult is the daily routine and discipline, more so than the competition. Suffering with years of constant physical and psychological tiredness is what sets apart the work of an athlete from that of others. It is the capacity to face constant stress that determines the length of your life as an athlete. In the beginning of my career, the most difficult work was that I didn’t have substantial knowledge of trainers and that we lacked basic necessities for pursuing this sport,” says Rita.

The first international medal she won was in 2009 in HercegNovi in Montenegro.

“Being a champion and a record-setter for Kosovo was very important, considering that based on those results, I also participated in the most important competitions in Europe for Kosovo at the European and World competitions, as well as in the Olympics in 2016.”

This year, Rita challenged herself by becoming part of the “IronMan” competition in France.

The IronMan triathlon is known to be one of the most challenging competitions, where you have to be prepared for swimming, cycling and running. She passed this challenge with much success and her experience as a swimmer helped her a lot and built the confidence she needed to join this competition.

“My day to day preparations for Iron man, mostly focused on cycling, as this was the most difficult discipline for me. Since the number of women that cycle is very small in Kosovo, considering that as soon as you start cycling on the street you are judged, and because there are no cycling paths on the streets. During IronMan, I struggled the most with cycling, because of the heavy winds, up to 40km/h – 25+miles/hour and the high terrain of up to 1300 meters/4000+ feet.”

Rita also works at “Step”, a Swimming Center, focusing on young swimmers. She is also training her little sister, Eda, who according to her is currently regarded as one of “the best swimmers in Kosovo” and preparing to represent Kosovo in the World Championship.

In the near future, Rita aims to successfully complete the Full Iron Man, which is the double in length from the competition in France, requiring 3.8 km of swimming, 180 km biking and 42 km running.

Rita Zeqiri participated in the triathlon race IronMan 70.3, 12.05.2019 Pays d’aix, France.

Era Skivjani and Yllka Haxhikadrija: Producers of “Pa përkufizim”

Still from Pa perkufizim

Yllka (24) and Era (17), two young women from Gjakova, have recently produced their first film “Pa perkufizim”, translated as “No Definition”, which is a reflection of the feelings of youth in the face of prejudice.

Even though, Yllka is studying architecture and Era Information and Computer Technology. They share a common hobby: film production. Through film they hope to be able to touch upon subjects that hurt the livelihoods of their communities.

“Prejudice is an inseparable part of our society. Some of us are judged because of the life choices we make that are against tradition, while others are judged because of their faith, race and gender. We judge situations which we are incapable of understanding, because of our intellectual limitations and our lack of sufficient information and thus create an unsound stance towards something or someone,” says Yllka.

The “Pa Perkufizim” film depicts what lies behind judgment. The main reason for creating this documentary came about from a desire to raise awareness and educate viewers about the concept of judgment in our society in more depth.

For the young women, producing this film was difficult because they had to write the script and direct the documentary themselves. They also struggled with finding people who would be part of the film.

“A struggle for me was to find people that would feel comfortable to share their histories of struggle. Many of the people that had the best stories and the strongest messages did not want to be part of the documentary or gave up at the last moment.” – says Era.

The total length of the project, from ideation to film completion, was six months. Dokufest, provided them in-kind support, offering consultations, cameras, and working space. Dokufest is an International Documentary and Short-Film Festival which is held in the idyllic old town of Prizren in Kosova.

Era’s and Yllka’s “Pa Perkufizim” film was screened at “Dokufest” in Prizren, as well as in Gjakova at the Parku kulturor “Ali Podrimja”, and in Romania, at the “Culese din Balcani” at the “Free Zone Festival”, in Belgrade at the “Pravo Ljudski” Festival in Sarajevo.

During the month of March of this year, the documentary was screened in Venice at the “Ca’Foscari” festival, where it was also awarded with the Special Mention of Passinetti award.

As a visual artist, Era is now focusing on mural creation, while Yllka has just produced another short-documentary, jointly with Mateja Raickovic and Biljana Dulovic, as part of the “Creative Documentary Film Lab”. The film is planned to premiere in August of 2019 at Dokufest and then it will be shown at Pravo Ljudski Film Festival in Sarajevo.

Still from Pa perkufizim.

This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of KosovaLive and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union or IKS, and Lens or FES.

Kosovalive uses media as a means of education, dialogue and equality. Since 2015, KosovaLive houses the GlobalGirl Media Kosova bureau, which has been awarded 9 honors and awards working in getting girls’ and young women’s voices heard through media.

GlobalGirl Media, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, is dedicated to empowering high school age girls from under-served communities around the world through media, leadership and journalistic training to have a voice in the global media universe and their own futures.

GlobalGirl Media invests in girls to become their own agents of change in bridging the gender digital divide, providing concrete skills with which to improve their personal situations. They believe working with young women around the world to find and share their authentic voice is an investment in our global future.

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