Story of Ashkhen Aslikyan Born in a small village named Berdavan in Armenia, Ashkhen’s upbringing was conservative. There was so much she couldn’t talk about then because regressive attitudes of people within her community. It took the Armenian young woman leader close to a decade to fully embrace the ideology […]
Story of Vera Syrokvash For Vera Syrokvash, at the age of six years old, she was already a solitary feminist though unaware of it. As a child, Vera often did not understand why girls were treated differently. Her desire to argue and finding out the truth was not encouraged. There […]
Story of Satoko Yamaguchi Do you remember when you were a teenager? Or in your 20s? Is this a time you want to forget? Or do you want to go back and change the events of your teenage life? Satoko Yamaguchi from Japan often reminds herself of her 16-year old […]
Story of Lucy Masiye Learn to cook, take care of the family and get married off. For decades and even now, this has been the sequential reality of very many young women and girls. A desire for something different is frowned upon, forcing women to continue living in the cocoon […]
Many young women and girls who identify as feminists, say their first experience with feminism was experimental, intuitive and intertwined with their own histories, identities and the family background they grew up in. As they go through life, learn and organize their world view changed which could be attributed to […]
Dear women, young women, girls, allies and partners of YWCA all around the world, It is my pleasure to welcome you to 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence 2020 campaign. Our theme for this year, Young Women Lead: Diverse Voices for Action and Accountability. Resonates deeply with our […]
Week Without Violence is a World YWCA campaign celebrated each year to reflect on the magnitude and the strides taken within the movement to address violence against women, young women and girls. Violence against women is still a global problem of epidemic proportions which has further being magnified by the […]
Early in July 2020, the World YWCA launched a call encouraging young women across the YWCA movement to apply to become part of the Leadership Cohort Programme 2020. Supported by the centennial YWCA World Service Council and originally known as the World YWCA internship programme, the Leadership Cohort offers the opportunity for […]
While COVID-19 takes the world by storm, occupying centre stage on TV channels night after night, another pernicious pandemic rages on that somehow doesn’t make the daily 9 PM news. This pandemic is one that we all know about, one that we’ve grown up hearing stories of from our mothers […]
Esther Janine Zehntner, a native of Switzerland, living in Basel, joined the YWCA movement as a young girl around 70 years ago. “Joining YWCA movement? It just happened”, she says. From that young girl in YWCA of Switzerland, she moved across to many positions, locations and experiences, only to be […]
