Rewind 2023
That education taught her about sexual health, girls’ rights and protection against gender-based violence through Plan International’s We Decide project*. By participating in the project, Natsumi became a peer counsellor and a leader in her community.
In 2023, we learned that it would take the world 131 years to achieve gender equality at our current rate of progress. We say no way, and we’re enlisting girls like Natsumi to help us beat the clock.
*With funding from the Government of Canada
Natsumi lives in Loreto, Peru, where one in five teen girls becomes pregnant.
Five videos to help you relive some of the year’s pivotal moments for girls, women and young change makers.
1. Trend Breaker
Although Taylor Swift isn’t in our year-end review, if you keep reading, you’ll meet other inspiring and powerful girls and young women like her who take centre stage to create social change.
This top-five video list will take you on a world tour from Peru to Bangladesh, highlighting the activists and issues that headlined children’s-rights and gender-equality news in 2023.
Lights… compassion… action!
I could have been one of them, but I had another kind of education.”
2. Tech that Protects
– 16-year-old Natsumi
Protect Girls’ Health Rights is our highest-matched Gift of Hope! Help 8x more girls stay safe from FGM.
Words by Jenny Bertrand
Design by Belle Vo
Reading time: 6 minutes
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Stacy talked to our CEO, Lindsay Glassco, about her journey in making the anti-FGM app iCut at 17 years old and winning the prestigious global Technovation Girls challenge.
This year, we launched the first video interview of our new CEO Chats series, another step forward in our mission to amplify the voices of young leaders like Stacy, who have big, bold ideas that create a brighter tomorrow.
An app that helps prevent female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya? That sounds nearly impossible – but not to Stacy Owino and her app co-developers, “The Restorers.”
More than 200 million girls have undergone FGM in 30 countries across Africa and Asia.
Despite the historic proportions of the current crisis, hunger didn’t make international headlines in 2023, and millions of people didn’t get enough support. So a group of mothers in Kenya took lunch into their own hands. Plan International provided the ingredients, but the “Dinner Ladies” volunteers made these life-changing school meals of maize and beans.
2023 was also the sixth consecutive year of drought in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia – leaving 5.1 million children malnourished.
At the beginning of the year, Plan International ran school-meal programs in 47 schools in Kenya, for more than 20,000 children. However, dwindling resources and donations mean we’ve had to cut our operations in half.
The drought affected everyone,” said Khadijah, one of the Dinner Ladies. “But [children] know that when they come [to school], they’ll have lunch.”
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3. Soup’s On
A School Meals Gift of Hope can help nourish more children and keep the Dinner Ladies in action.
Read more about child, early and forced marriage in Bangladesh and Useaking’s life.
I want my daughter to reach her full potential and enjoy her freedom, to have access to education and the opportunity to pursue her dreams.”
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4. Useaking’s Ever After
Useaking’s number-one piece of advice: “I tell my girlfriends and girls around me to study or learn a job without getting married at a young age like me.”
Useaking lives in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, home to the world’s largest refugee camp. She was married at 17 and pregnant by 18 – and didn’t find the freedom she had thought marriage would bring her.
But her story doesn’t end there. Now Useaking is a proud mother and a mentor to other girls in her community, helping them learn about health topics she never knew about until participating in Plan International’s LEAP project*. She discusses topics like sex education, protection and girls’ rights so they can forge futures of their own making.
Useaking is among thousands of girls and supporters striving to beat the clock and make gender equality happen faster.
*With funding from the Government of Canada
– Useaking
That’s why we host an annual Storytellers Symposium, to celebrate and amplify young people’s voices, passions and ideas. Participants from our suite of youth programs take the stage to promote what matters to them, reigniting the collective motivation to make change happen. If you’re losing the spark to stay involved, hear some tips from five young folks who are doing the darn thing!
Too often, activism work goes unnoticed, or the results of one’s efforts are hard to track in our ever-shifting world.
Watch the full Storytellers Symposium broadcast
5. Reignite Your Activism
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Natsumi, 16, takes care of her younger siblings.
Stacy Owino (far right), helped develop iCut, an app that fights female genital mutilation.
Khadijah, one of the “Dinner Ladies,” prepares hot lunches for 600 students at a school in Kilifi county, Kenya.
Useaking (third from right) participates in group discussions in her community.
Members of Flaunt It performed at the 2023 Storytellers Symposium in Toronto, Canada.
