They called me a Young European Woman

On the 9th of March 2019, the Georgian Young European Ambassadors visited ‘Girl Up’ Marneuli which is located in Marneuli, Georgia. The visit’s aim was to celebrate International Women’s Day with the club’s members, and talk about their lifestyles and problems which are faced in their community.

‘Girl Up’ was founded by the United Nations Foundation in 2010, and continues to work across a global community of partners to achieve gender equality worldwide. It supports and empowers Young Women. There are more than 2200 Girl Up Clubs around the world and ‘Girl Up’ Marneuli is one of the most active.

‘Girl Up’ advocates, organises and financially supports projects in developing countries where girls need help the most. Together we believe that empowered women are important for each country’s development. Because strong women mean a strong Georgia, and a strong Georgia means a stronger Europe.

As an organiser of the event, I participated in both my capacities as a Young European Ambassador and as a ‘Girl Up’ Marneuli leader.

After an introduction, we watched the film named “He named me Malala,” drinking Azerbaijani tea around an amazing Azerbaijani sufra whilst hearing the story of the famous young Pakistani activist and feminist, Malala Yousafzai. When we finished watching the film we discussed Malala’s life and compared our community’s problems with the problems she faced in her own community. Our members also joined the discussion actively and shared our community’s most active problems, such as early marriages and gender inequality. Both sides discussed how to solve these problems and gave suggestions.

Beside this, the YEAs gave information about the initiative, what our job is, what we do as YEAs, and talked about opportunities offered to young people through the EU such as exchange programs, volunteering programs and how to participate in them. The ‘Girl Up’ members were very motivated and they are looking forward to participate in such amazing programs.

Finally, taking a group picture with EU and Georgian flags stayed as a memory for us. It was the best International Women’s Day in Marneuli full of motivation and memories for both YEAs and the ‘Girl Up’ Marneuli members.

A big thank you to the EU for giving us such opportunities to bring our young people and future leaders together to share our experiences and ideas with each other.