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Our Young Leaders Brought the WOW Factor to the Annual Girls Global Summit
Updated: Aug 21, 2020
I recently had the opportunity to attend the Girls Global Summit
where other young representatives from different clubs and organizations got together to spread awareness about different topics that affect girls on a global scale. As members of the Youth Advocacy Council, my friend Maya and I lead a breakout session on Healthy Relationships - a topic that we are advocating for more education on at this year’s State Board of Education public hearing.
I am really proud of how interactive our table was! We got a lot of positive feedback on how engaging our activities were and I believe the other students felt they learned a lot through the way we ran our session. We held discussions about the different characteristics of both healthy and unhealthy relationships which we then applied through an activity where participants had cards with situations on them and they had to determine whether that situation was healthy or unhealthy.
Some of the situations were:
“You get a friend to spy on your partner for you.”
“Your partner tells you how good you look.”
“You have your partner’s social media passwords.”
“You spend time without your partner.”
Some of the responses were:
“You get a friend to spy on your partner for you.”
Someone said this was unhealthy because it shows that there is no trust in the relationship. This was a very good answer, for trust is a virtue we attribute to a healthy relationship.
“Your partner tells you how good you look.”
A participant described this as healthy because it’s good to support your partner and build them up. However, our audience also said that this could be unhealthy if appearance is the only thing your partner compliments you on. They said it shows that that person isn’t invested in their partner and their wellbeing if they are only fixated on appearance.
“You have your partner’s social media passwords.”
Someone said this was unhealthy because once again it shows that you don’t trust your partner. Another person said this could be healthy because if you are willing to give your passwords to your partner it shows you have nothing to hide.
“You spend time without your partner.”
All of our participants agreed this was healthy because it shows you have a healthy relationship with yourself and you are not dependent on your partner.
We noticed that not everyone understands how to apply healthy and unhealthy characteristics to real-life situations - and in some situations, it isn’t so black and white. This is why it’s important that everyone has access to this type of education. Overall, The Girls Global Summit was a really positive experience for me. Not only did I get to spread awareness on healthy relationships, but I got to learn so much about issues affecting women today and how we can combat those issues.
- Sophie
2nd-year council member
