Empowering Women, Empowering Communities🩷

Woah… it has been a while since I’ve written about Justice & Equality (J&E), my service group. Brace yourselves, I’ve got a lot to cover! 

Quick Instagram Updates

As service leader, I took it upon myself to manage the OSC J&E Instagram page – link here. However, it is extremely difficult to constantly be making posts; unfortunately I’ve only managed to make a total of 3 this whole school year! As these posts are made in my own time, including having had to do IB school work, COMUN, SAISA football/basketball and still have a social life, I wasn’t able to make a lot. We have 107 followers right now, and the most recent post I made is titled “Periods are Disgusting”. All the post titles are provocative quotes, however, they then go into the topic (in this case periods/menstruation) from the perspective we voice. We explain what menstruation is in simple terms, but also scientifically. We also write about irregular periods, side effects, destigmatizing periods, period poverty in the world, then focusing on period poverty in Sri Lanka. We got 94 likes, which is the most likes we’ve gotten on a post so far! Here is the link to the post. 

Also, to do more advertising for our Instagram page, I made a poster (attached below) including a QR code; asking people to follow and support our cause. 

SAISA Girls Football T-Shirt Sale 

I’ve been to a number of SAISA’s up to now, and athletes are always looking for a souvenir from the host school (this year OSC, so us in Colombo, Sri Lanka) – or trying to get rid of some local money. Thus, I suggested to the members of the service group to set up a t-shirt sale during the days of the tournament. We ordered around 60 shirts with the budget that we had. As I was participating in the SAISA football tournament, I was not able to help with the sale. However, I knew that the sale was not doing well when I went to check up with some of the girls that were working. The stand was sort of in the shadows and I told them to go into the canteen and team room; where they can sell the shirts to athletes directly and promote the service group. A big shoutout to Arlina and Naomi for doing this, because they sold an amazing number of 46 t-shirts!! The shirts our arguably simple, designed by Vicky (shoutout). They are white, with the J&E logo on the right side of the shirt, and the main message our service group tries to promote in big letters in the back: “Women’s Rights are Human Rights”. It was so beautiful to see so many girls and coaches wear our shirts and represent what we stand for. 

Women’s Week 2024 !!!

This year’s Women’s Week was from March 4th – March 8th. Like every year the Justice & Equality service group organizes activities throughout the week to celebrate women all over the world, but also within our community. 

Monday – We started the Women’s Week celebration with guest speaker Devika Solomon, from Sambol Foundation at lunch time. Sambol Foundation is a non-profit organization that focuses on protecting women and children affected by violence, with special care towards survivors of domestic violence. This particular issue is huge and not very spoken of in Sri Lanka. Women who have experienced domestic violence are extremely diminished, as filing a court case (for example) can lead to the woman’s child to be taken and put in a “care center” – for however long the court trial would take. This makes domestic violence victims not want to speak up about the horrific experiences they have to go through, fearing to lose their child. In order to help the Sambol Foundation J&E made a 70,000 rupee donation (around 230 USD) earned from selling our t-shirts and baked goods earlier in the year. We, J&E will continue to work with this organization, in hopes of helping vulnerable women in any way that we can. You can find out more about / contant Sambol Foundation on Instagram, @sambolfoundation. 

Tuesday – With the help of primary art teacher and J&E supervisor Ms. Kristin, on Tuesday, we were able to organize a “Woman who Inspire” workshop for primary students. Here the students were asked to sketch a woman that inspires them, and why. The purpose of this activity was to send out a short appreciation to all the beautiful and inspiring women in our lives, whether that is a mother, a sister, a teacher or a friend, a moment of appreciation is always needed. These drawings were put up all around school, and if you have the time to walk around OSC, it is so sweet to see these drawings. Whether the child is an artist or not, thank you to all the primary students who took a moment and did this activity. 

Wednesday & Thursday – On Wednesday, J&E continued with a bake sale, and there is not much to say about a bake sale if I’m being completely honest. A huge thank you to all the people who participated and were able to share their goods; everything was so yummy and everything sold.  On Thursday, J&E  held a t-shirt sale, essential for the school group photo on Friday. All profits going to Sambol Foundation. 

Friday – Friday the 8th of March was International Women’s Day. In order to celebrate, secondary students, staff and administration gathered on the field for a drone shot photo, wearing either pink or the Justice & Equality t-shirts. The shirts state that “Women’s Rights are Human Rights”, something that should actually be considered a universal law. To all the members of the Justice & Equality service group, thank you for working so hard. And most of all and perhaps most importantly, thank you to all the inspiring and empowering women around the whole world. They should not only be appreciated on women’s week/day, but everyday, for all their support, hard work, dedication and love. Thank you to you all, you are appreciated and we look up to so many of you.

Helping with a Sanitary Boxes Initiative 

My friend and classmate Stephie Turner (shoutout) constructed her global politics mock IA around making a proposal for the school to invest in sanitary napkins in school bathrooms. Although this was not my project, when she went to the school board to present, she asked me to accompany her. She did an amazing job, and I had a small part in it (as J&E leader). I stated that the service is struggling to provide sanitary napkins for girls in the bathrooms since our funds are now going to women’s centers and organizations with new partnerships such as Sambol Foundation. Thus, J&E is currently unable to provide. The school board was very happy with Stephie’s proposal and are looking into investing into sanitary napkins for the bathrooms, which is really important and great! 

The Superpower of Positive Self-Talk – Presentation & Workshop

Part of our service mission is to empower members of our community through things such as educational activities, workshops and open-minded discussions. We believe that a lot of societal expectations are often engraved into one’s mind at a young age. Thus, we decided to tackle this problem from where it starts; young minds. We created a variety of short presentations and engaging activities discussing different topics such as gender stereotypes, toxic masculinity and body image. The presentation and activities I created revolved around the topic of positive self talk, which I then presented to a couple groups of 5th grade students. Since these kids are relatively young, I needed to adapt from my usually formal presentation style to a more simplistic and engaging approach. For example, I referred to positive self talk being like a little friend inside your head who says kind and encouraging things. Whilst negative self talk on the other hand is a little mean bully inside your head that is constantly trying to weigh you down. I gave small examples such as “I’m so stupid! I’ll never get this math problem right!”. I asked them to raise their hand if they’ve ever had a similar experience (I raised mine too). I told them that instead of that, it would be more beneficial to think something like, “this is hard, but I’ll just have to keep trying my hardest”. Anyways, after the short presentation was over (link to slides HERE), everyone got into small groups and did an activity called a complement circle. It’s pretty straightforward, you just give one compliment to the person next to you, and the previous person has to give you one compliment. After this short activity, everyone got to individually create their own superhero capes. Mrs. Kristin, the art teacher, provided cape printouts and a variety of different colored pens. The activity was to write down who you are, what you like about yourself and what you’re good at on one side; and on the other side they had to write down positive affirmations which they could pull out if the little bully inside their head ever got too much to handle. 

To sum it up, it was a successful workshop and I received a lot of positive feedback from the teachers observing. I think that the topic of positive self-talk is very important, especially for me as well, who is the type of person that takes things to heart too much. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’d know (for example) how long it took me to get over a football tournament that I didn’t like the outcome of. Nevertheless, it is important to own up to one’s mistakes, but it is also important to not beat yourself up about everything. And this is something that I’ve been continuing to learn in my IB journey, as there are many moments where it seems like everything is coming down at once (and it is), but it is essential to keep a clear head and plan to move forward.

In Collaboration with Emerge Lanka 

When the Justice & Equality service group (formerly known as Girls for Girls) first started up at OSC, they were in collaboration with Emerge Lanka, a women’s shelter and foundation that aims to “empower girls who have survived abuse or exploitation, and have had the courage to speak out, stand up for their beliefs and protect others” (Emerge Lanka Home) – learn more about Emerge here. After COVID however, Emerge closed down temporarily, and due to certain legal issues, we could no longer further work with them. Recently we met with some of their representatives, and I am so excited to announce that in my next and final school year, Justice & Equality will again work with the women and girls from Emerge Lanka! The women from Emerge coming to my school was the initial reason I wanted to join this service group so badly back when I was in 6th grade. Sadly, I wasn’t able to join at such a young age, but when I finally was, COVID came around… Thus, I am so happy that for my senior year I will be able to fulfill my 6th grade aspirations and support the women and girls from Emerge to the best of my ability. We plan to do activities such as sports and arts with them, as it is essential to make them feel empowered and strong after everything they’ve been through. 

Final Thoughts 

I think that overall it was a pretty successful year of Justice & Equality. Although we were not able to achieve one of our main goals, which was to  support women’s shelters on campus, we tried to adapt and did so to the best of our abilities. I think the main highlights of the year include our donation to Sambol Foundation, and the masses of t-shirts we sold to not only get our message across on campus, but beyond with the other international schools having come for SAISA football. 

Also, I had the honor and opportunity to MC the final service assembly of the year. My friend Akhil and I presented all the different service groups and their achievements to the school, celebrating a successful year of service at OSC!