By Amie Williams | Executive Director
This report is very difficult ot write as we have had such severe setbacks due to Covid-19. We had hoped to do our next annual training in May-June with a cohort of 20 young women, 20 refugee/migrants and 10 Greek. However, due to the government restrictions and closure of schools we have had to cancel everything. It took us about a month to regroup and figure out how to best serve the girls we had already begin to select to participate. However, many of them were hard to reach, as the camps and shelters were completely off-limits to outsiders, and many girls and their familes did not even have the funds for a cellphone service.
Now, almost three months later, we are happy to report we were able to pivot slightly and do a smaller, online training, involving our entire GlobalGirl family. As this terrible time has taught us all, leaning on community and reaching out to share scarce resources is needed. So we dug deep and some of us who work for GGM actually came up with some funds as donations to invite ALL GGM graduates from all our chapters throughout the world to pitch stories about "sheltering in place." Out of these we selected fourteen stories, and two of them involved three of your former GGM Greece graduates!
The series is called CORONA #IRL, and features stories about a non-functioning domestic violence hotline in South Africa, the collapse of the Kosovo government in the midst of the pandemic, a single teen-age Mom in Chicago trying to hold it together,a Guatemalan girl dealing with her Grandmother's death, and an East Los Angeles young woman interviewing the homeless and incarcerated. Our GGM, Greek girls all reported from their very unique living situtations, two had moved from Greece to other European countries, and one is still in Athens. All the reports are raw, heartfelt, vulnerable and reflect the very real ways the girls are living and responding to the crisis. Keeping within the safety constraints of social distancing, the young women have used their phones and basic equipment to document the hope, friendships, creativity, challenges and accomplishments, from their homes, in refugee camps, inner cities, rural areas and suburbia.
We will be sharing this series on our platforms and social media and hope ot partner with a major news media outlet to get the broadest viewership possible.
As the news from mainstream media continues its important coverage of the epidemic, the girls’ perspectives will offer an intimate and personal look at the effects this worldwide state of emergency has had on youth. The GlobalGirl Media series, Corona IRL, will highlight the challenges, successes, new ideas, and hopes of a generation that is proving itself vital in leading the change we want to see in the world.
Finally, we WILL ABSOLUTELY be doung our trainings and kick-starting our program again in the Fall of 2020 in Athens and possible on one of the islands of Chios, Samos or Lesbos, where a large concentraiton of refugees and new arrivals are in dire need of support.
Thanks to all our supporters and we wish you all a safe recovery and better times ahead!
GGM Leadership, staff and girl reporters
Links:
By Amie Williams | GGM Executive Director and Co-Founder
By Amie Williams | Executive Director
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