#genderbasedviolence

Changing the World: One Story at a Time

Youth Citizen Journalists Tell Their Stories

THE HUB is an online magazine and blog that features feminist articles and films by citizen journalists. The publication is a longterm project conceived by Advice Project Media, and its mission is to help lift the voices of youth, women, and indigenous peoples from around the world by sharing their articles and films about gender, the environment, intersectionality, and climate change.

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Advice to My Thirteen-Year-Old Self

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Paul Biya's Presidential Win in Cameroon Heightens the Ambazonia Crisis

Paul Biya isn’t a monarch, but he sure acts like one. The second-longest-ruling head of state in the world, 85-year-old Biya just won a seventh term as President of Cameroon after a campaign rife with controversy. The election results didn’t come as a surprise to the people of Cameroon, although for many citizens, the president’s win destroyed the last vestiges of a silver lining of hope. My country stands on the brink of civil war. Still reeling from its colonial past involv

How supporting women's soccer in Cameroon promotes peace for entire communities

A common sight during the late afternoons or weekends in villages and cities across Cameroon is that of boys playing soccer. In 1863, the same year as the sport was established by the Football Association of England, soccer was imported to the African continent by British colonists, making it a global, rather than distinctly European, game. Yet it was the British who determined the rules of the game in Europe and Africa. Only men were allowed to play, and the sex-segregated n

2015 Millennial Empowerment Conference (MEC)

Melissa was invited to give a keynote talk at the first annual Millennial Empowerment Conference (MEC) in Bamenda. Organized and hosted by gender rights advocate Marie-Claire Nabila Kuja, over 500 participants traveled from all corners of Cameroon and the United States to talk about how to affect change among youth. Melissa’s talk was about how the power of a single word can change the course of history. Her story inspired many people, and she was invited to share excerpts

Dear Future Women of Cameroon

Written by Advice Project Media's Cameroon Program Manager, Fomuso Blessing Nabila, to future generations of women of Cameroon: Dear Future Women of Cameroon, I believe you will have advanced very much as a society by the time these words reach you. From where I write in 2016, women are bonded by corruption, bribery, and unemployment, and most of all, by violent cultural practices perpetrated against women and girls. Grandmothers and mothers iron their daughters’ breasts flat

A Story About the Importance of Educating Girls: Naheed Bahram, Program Director for Women for Afgha

It was a great privilege last week to meet with Advice to My Thirteen-Year-Old Self contributor and New York Program Director for Women for Afghan Women, Naheed Bahram, at her office in Queens, New York. Speaking with Naheed about her life and learning more about her organization inspired me, and I think you, too, will be moved by her story. Although Naheed’s working-class, conservative parents weren’t formally educated, they believed in educating their children. Naheed remem

Gender does not define you

In 2013, UNICEF published a comprehensive report about Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting (FGM/C). FGM/C, a cultural practice that forces girls and women to have their external genitalia removed either partially or fully in the name of preserving chastity. This practice is inflicted on upwards of 98 percent of girls and women in countries such as Somalia, Guinea, Djibouti, and Egypt. Globally, an estimated 140 million girls and women in 29 countries have been subjected to