This morning, I woke up earlier than usual to meet with my colleague Fereshteh Forough, one of the co-founders of Women's Annex, to attend Girls Education and Women's Empowerment in Real World Social Networks, a Social Media Week panel that focused on female empowerment in developing countries.
The panel was introduced and moderated by Scott MacMillan, the Communications Manager of BRAC USA, a non-profit organization that empowers people and communities in situations of poverty, illiteracy, disease and social injustice. MacMillan opened the session with a 40-year old anecdote to explain the power structure in developing countries, particularly in Bangladesh, which is where BRAC was founded back in 1972. Though slightly long and complex, the intro achieved to shed light on the power struggles, corruption, and injustice, especially towards women, that is still prevalent throughout the globe.
The panel started getting interesting for me when the female leaders of the three featured non-profit organizations began to share their stories. Christen Brandt, the Director of International Operations at She's the First was the first speaker, and she talked about how her organization is helping girls in poor countries realize their full potential and continue with their education. With the Starfish Mentorship Program, She's the First, assigns mentors to young women to break the cycle of early marriage, giving birth at a young age, and lack of education, things that their mothers had to go through. Starfish not only educates, but also empowers young women with knowledge and skills in areas like reproductive education, financial literacy, health, and critical, independent thinking.
One of the last questions at the Q&A following the discussion amongst the panelists was about social media. An audience member asked how these organizations were integrating social media strategies into their platforms. To my surprise, the answers from the panelists and the moderator was unsatisfactory. In fact, only Christen Brandt from She's the First spoke about the positive effects of social media use on her organization's efforts and outreach. This is where Fereshteh and I came in. It was the perfect opportunity to introduce Women's Annex and how we're building schools in Afghanistan, opening Internet classrooms for middle and high school students, creating a social media and filmmaking curriculum for Afghan girls and boys.
