My friends and I: We are the girls you did not see. We live in places that were forgotten; no one asked us what we needed. Now we are learning, speaking, and dreaming together. We are here. And we decide.
They told us we could not go to school because there was no money.
We walked for miles to fetch water, through fear and the threat of violence.
They thought we would be safer if we were married to someone much older.
We had so much to say, but for so long, we were never asked, never heard.
The I’m Here approach found us in villages, camps, and cities and asked us,
“What do you need? What do you want?”
We told them,
“We want to go back to school.”
“We want to feel safe.”
“We want to choose our futures.”
And they gave us tools to manifest our answers.
Now we’re forming peer groups, leading workshops, and helping each other speak. Some of us want to become teachers. Others dream of building bridges. We still face challenges, but now we face them together, stronger than before.
We hear about girls like us in other places, like Afghanistan, Sudan, and Gaza. We know that these girls are ready to turn their ideas into action.
