{"id":227913,"date":"2024-01-30T21:12:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T02:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalgiving.org\/learn\/?p=227913"},"modified":"2024-09-23T09:34:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:34:17","slug":"introducing-community-voices-fellows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalgiving.org\/learn\/introducing-community-voices-fellows","title":{"rendered":"The Power Of The Pen To Change The World: Introducing The Community Voices Fellows"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a sunny day in Mikocheni, Tanzania. <\/p>\n

Sia Fred Towo clutches a bag of reusable sanitary pads in one hand, showcasing it for a group of women in a dusty yard with a look of seriousness and pride that rarely accompanies menstrual products. <\/p>\n

Sia is the director of Femme International<\/a>, a nonprofit in East Africa on a mission to break down global menstrual taboos. She struggled through her first periods alone\u2014the only girl in a family with five brothers, made too ashamed to talk to her reserved mom about what was happening to her body. Fast forward to today. Sia is not only bringing period products to remote villages in Tanzania, she is bravely bearing her own painful experiences in a borderless and ageless format\u2014the op-ed.<\/p>\n

\"Community
\nSia distributes period products in Mikocheni, Tanzania.<\/small><\/p>\n

Courageous women from Afghanistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Peru are turning to the power of the pen to expose injustices and inspire change on a broad array of urgent issues from climate change to education access. Sia is one of six grassroots change leaders who are writing op-eds about their personal experiences with these issues in partnership with GlobalGiving.<\/p>\n

Why op-eds? The timeless op-ed has been proven to have large and long-lasting effects on people\u2019s views, regardless of their occupations and political affiliations, according to a Yale University study<\/a>. Up to 70% of people who read op-eds agreed with the authors\u2019 views immediately after they finished reading.<\/p>\n

Yet, when it comes to life-or-death issues, vitally important voices are missing. Representation of women and Global Majority expert voices in publishing spaces of all kinds still lags behind white, Western men. This needs to change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Take authorship on climate change, one of the most urgent challenges facing humankind. Climate change authorship from the Global Majority hovers at a mere 1-19%, according to analyses from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace<\/a> and the Society for Conservation Biology<\/a>. The brunt of climate change consequences fall on the very people who are excluded from dialogue about how to curb it. <\/p>\n

Likewise, women\u2019s voices are chronically underrepresented. One study found women made up 19%<\/a> of experts featured in news stories and 37%<\/a> of reporters telling stories globally.<\/p>\n

To help turn the tide, GlobalGiving is supporting six Global Majority community leaders working on urgent social issues through a new Community Voices Fellowship<\/a>. The fellows also received support from The OpEd Project<\/a> and Energize Your Voice<\/a> to amplify powerful solutions from within their communities that too often go unheard.<\/p>\n