International Day of the Girl Child 2020 Vlog Call by The Graça Machel Trust

The Graça Machel Trust works across the continent on three issues: women’s rights, children’s rights, and governance and leadership. They catalyse action, support local initiatives, lend solidarity and offer support where it is needed. The trust also connects people and groups that should know each other and work together; and engage both publicly and behind the scenes with power brokers to strengthen, multiply, and amplify the voices of African women and children. They work through networks and collaborations and incubate and create new initiatives where there are gaps.

The Graca Machel Trust has an exciting and unique opportunity to share which will provide adolescent girls with space for their voice to heard and amplified. This listening initiative hosted by the Graca Machel Trust aims to work with adolescent girls to have them reimagine a better world that is inspired by their own hopes and ambitions. It will be from the energized and recognized efforts of these adolescent girls that they will gain leadership on how they can build a more equitable world that is considerate of the struggles and aspirations of adolescent girls on the continent.

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The Trust will achieve this through a listening series that will have adolescent girls speak about the kind of world which they wish to have established during and post COVID – 19. This will be done to cultivate a culture of agency amongst adolescent girls whereby they can claim their own destinies. They believe that this bottom-up approach will see national, sub-regional and continental stakeholders serve to support and uplift the call to actions and works of the adolescent girls rather than providing them with antidotes that are never fully reflective or considerate of the adolescent girls lived reality.

This listening series will be led by adolescent girls from the continent. The diversity of Africa in culture, religion and traditions would mean that the activities of this event need to be reflective of the different realities that adolescent girls face in their own environment.

They will be listening to the adolescent girls for purposes of capturing their thoughts and opinions to all stakeholders. This process of information capturing from the adolescent girls will begin with a release of vlogs that have been done by adolescent girls around the continent and end with a series of webinars.