International Girls Forum

Last Tuesday, October 11, we celebrated the International Day of the Girl Child. An important date in the calendar of many of our Jesuit works that work for the defense of the rights of girls around the world. To commemorate this day, the International Federation of Fe y Alegría, the Jesuit Refugee Service and Entreculturas have hosted an International Forum with girls and adolescents participating in the program The LIGHT of the GIRLS to claim and defend their right to a childhood free of violence.

Through the International Forum, held online on October 10, girls from Chad, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Kenya and Nicaragua were able to share their stories and talk about how education has transformed their lives.

Girls unite to claim the importance of education

The Forum, which could be followed from different parts of the world thanks to the translation into different languages, once again showed how education changes the lives of girls regardless of the place or context in which they find themselves. A dialogue that allowed us to hear firsthand, through the testimonies of the girls, how education nourishes their hopes for a better future, opening up new personal and professional horizons.

In addition to hearing the life stories of some of them, the Forum analyzed the different realities of violence they face from gender experts such as Sandra Aguilar, a gender expert from Fe y Alegría El Salvador, who delved into the structural nature of violence in Central America. There was also time to discover how this year the campaign has worked on artistic expression with girls as a way of expressing the violence they suffer and healing their wounds.