Welcome to Day 8 of the 11 Days of Action hosted by NGO CSW/NY! In honor of International Day of the Girl, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide a platform where girls are celebrated and given space to share their voices and shed light on some of their most pressing issues. NGO CSW believes girls and activism go hand-in-hand. We are committed to #ReactivatingActivism through inclusive, intergenerational, and action-oriented collaboration for gender equality.

Today’s theme and focus is on building an inclusive and effective platform for activism by celebrating the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and recognizing its importance for the future of women’s and girl’s rights. Young women and girls are our future and Beijing25 is their stepping stone!

The Beijing Declaration is marked as the agenda for female empowerment, focusing on issues of poverty, education and training, health, violence, armed conflict, economy, power and decision making, and participation in institutional mechanisms. 2020 will be the 25th anniversary of this agenda. Yet, we still have much space and opportunity for its implementation. We can move the needle by focusing our activism to be more intergenerational, healing, and collaborative.

While young girls everywhere are making tremendous waves of change, supporting girl-led and girl-centered activism working to achieve social change, should be our priority. There are many barriers that girl-led organizations face when achieving their goals: being overshadowed by formal and more prominent women’s organizations, financial barriers, and not having the space to implement their innovative ideas. It’s time to encourage and implement girl-led activism to create a more cohesive platform for all women. 

This year, we want to ask you to join us in #ReactivatingActivism during the International Day of the Girl. IDG and Beijing25 is our opportunity to shift international dialogues to focus on where it’s needed most: encouraging girls to participate and take initiative of their movement.