Happy International Women’s Day! I was recently scrolling through Netflix (what better things are there to do when you go to online university) when I came across a documentary called Daughters of Destiny by Vanessa Roth. It follows the story of young girls at a school in India which seeks to educate children from extreme poverty in the hopes of helping them get good careers and lift their families out of poverty. Watching this documentary made me extremely emotional to think that these young children carry the weight of being the only child in the family that is educated and therefore holds the responsibility of providing for their families, who are working intensive and dangerous labour jobs such as in mines. Many of the girls talked about how family members were against the idea of girls going to school and receiving an education I think it is is easy to sometimes fall into the mindset of being almost unappreciative of all the things in our lives such as education. It made me see myself in another light. I am privileged enough to have received a good education, no one told me that I shouldn’t go to school because I’m a girl. No one told me that I wouldn’t get a successful job because I was a girl.
Going to a girl’s school for secondary school almost acted like a shield from the outside world. I was surrounded by highly achieving, smart and successful women my whole life and it was easy to forget that in the workplace or just in life it won’t always be like that. But I am so grateful to have grown up surrounded by strong women who encouraged me every day to dream big and work my hardest to achieve what I want. This documentary was extremely eye opening to me and just reminded me what I’m working towards every day and the true power of education. I think it really makes a difference to take a moment every day to think about what you are grateful/thankful for, it doesn’t have to be something big because often it is the small moments that often remind us and can give us the motivation to keep going.
When we created Adventures with Amara, being an all-female company, it was extremely important to us to have this representation of a young girl as a main character. who is an explorer, is curious and is excited to learn something new along her journey. Young girls deserve positive role models in life. In our discrimination book we talk about gender discrimination which we felt should be discussed at a young age.
I have attached the link below which is follow up from the girls that were followed in the documentary and I strongly recommend it to anyone who has some free time. I have also attached the donation page to the school that is talked about in the documentary. I hope everyone reading this has a good day :) - Pranjal