WriteGirl Goes to Rome!
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WriteGirl was invited to travel to Rome, Italy, in November of 2019 for YouthMundus, an international youth empowerment conference helping to inspire youth to use their creativity as a vehicle for change! WriteGirl staff and two alums represented WriteGirl on a women’s empowerment panel alongside organizations such as Women’s March Global, Women Occupy Hollywood and Equality Now. WriteGirl also hosted an interactive walk-through workshop to help youth discover the power of their voice.
Our two WriteGirl alums, Janel Pineda and Sara Kimura, recently reflected on their experience at the festival.
By Janel Pineda, WriteGirl Alum
Janel Pineda is a poet, activist and educator currently pursuing dual master’s degrees in creative writing and migration studies as a Marshall Scholar in the UK.
While at the YouthMundus festival in Rome, I participated in a workshop with visual poetry artist Silvia Paoletti. It was wonderful to learn from Silvia about her experience with teaching visual poetics and blackout poetry to people of all ages, including young children. Specifically, Silvia emphasized the importance of engaging words and text through different mediums as a way of sparking creativity.
Drawing from an English-Italian bilingual edition of Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest, I crafted a poem of my own during the workshop.
Inspired by the Maria Lai “Tenendo Per Mano Il Sole” exhibit at the MAXXI museum, I began thinking of the role of threads and webs in art and poetry. In one of the interviews displayed at the MAXXI, Maria Lai described women artists as spider-like in nature – so, when flipping through Kate Tempest’s book, I chose a poem of that included the word “spider” and used that as a catalyst for my own poem. I titled the poem “Ode to my Homegirls,” and dedicated it to a close friend of mine who is a wonderful Mexican woman artist.
For me, crafting the poem allowed me to explore the joy and the resilient nature of my friendships with the women in my life who continuously inspire and support me.
By Sara Kimura, WriteGirl Alum
Sara Kimura is a Writers' PA for a new TV show on Fox called Almost Family and is pursuing a career in TV and film writing. She is also a WriteGirl weekly mentor.
I went to Rome to empower the youth of the world but came out of it feeling like I was the one who had been empowered.
On the third day of the conference, I was asked to represent WriteGirl on a panel with women representing other incredible organizations like Women’s March Global, Women Occupy Hollywood and Equality Now.
I was amazed by all of the different ways our organizations are effecting change in our communities and beyond, but I was also a little intimidated by the scale of their impact. Many of these organizations are using their resources to fight for women’s rights through legal action nationally and globally, while I’m over here trying to change one teenage girl’s life by being her weekly writing mentor on Sunday afternoons.
However, as the discussion continued, I realized something crucial. During the Q&A, an eleven-year-old girl named Lily asked each of us to share about a woman in history we admired most, and I was surprised to find that every single one of us shared about a woman we knew personally – not about the Rosa Parks or Ruth Bader Ginsburgs of the world, but about our moms, grandmas, sisters, and our first female bosses and mentors.
Working with WriteGirl has taught me the importance of empowering girls to believe in themselves in a country where the laws may say “Yes, you can.” but the culture says, “No, you can’t.” Having this discussion with these incredible women reminded me how important and intertwined all of our contributions are – whether it be to end violence against women through legal action in Kenya or to mentor a teenage girl in L.A. who doesn’t know her worth.
It is girls who know their innate value and power who go on to effect legal and social change in our world and this is why I am proud to be a WriteGirl alum and mentor, empowering girls with the confidence and tools to do just that.
