TRAVEL STORY

One of my biggest takeaways from this experience is how we choose not to listen. My project was story-based, and my goal was to simply listen to girls' voices and experiences as they navigate their gender identity within education. The very first interview I did was with 6 girls in a rural community in Benin. I opened the conversation by giving the girls a space to talk, free from judgement, free from expectation, free from assumptions. However, I was met with blank stares and silence in response. The translator in the room told me that girls in their community are not given a voice or an opportunity to speak freely, so me centering a space around that was new and unknown.

About a month later I was in a new community in Uganda. I had talked to the headmaster ahead of time and asked if it would be possible to speak to 6-8 girls from the school to talk about girlhood. When I arrived to the school, 52 girls were sitting in a classroom waiting for me. We started out the morning in a large group discussion but I quickly realized that these individual girls' voices still could not be heard in a group that large. As we wrapped up our group conversation about girlhood and the challenges facing each one of them simply because they identify as female and want to learn, I told the girls that I would be sitting outside under a tree for the afternoon and anyone was welcome to come speak with myself, a teacher, and a women's counselor to share their story, otherwise they should return to class or home. All 52 girls lined up and one by one came to tell their story as we sat in the grass under one of the only trees in the school yard. For the rest of the day, we sat in small groups and individually, laughing together, crying, sharing stories, listening, truly hearing, and honoring each other as empowered women. Almost every place I visited I was met with the same reaction. First, confusion as to what I was doing. Confusion as to why I wanted to hear girls' stories, why I thought their voices were important and deserving of being heard. Listening, valuing, and dignifying girls' worth is not the norm in our global society. But when girls are listened to, valued, dignified, and truly know that they are worthy, everything changes for all of us.