UN

November 10: A Day for Malala

Lena Shareef Leave a comment

I don’t know if you heard but UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, has declared November 10th to be a global day of action for Malala Yousafzai and 32 million other girls. In about a week, it will have been one month since the assassination attempt on Malala and Gordon Brown is traveling to Pakistan on that day to deliver a petition that’s got over a million signatures to President Zardari. This petition is proof that the people want education to be treated as a priority and that keeping girls out of school is not an option. If that interests you, you can sign the petition here: http://educationenvoy.org/petition

In a recent Huffington Post article, Gordon Brown wrote,

“When I hand him the petition I will ask the President to lead governmental changes in policy to ensure the delivery of girls’ education in Pakistan. I will also submit our petition to the United Nations to galvanize international support for the right of every child to go to school. I will announce in addition a new foundation in Malala’s honor as just a few weeks before her shooting she told her friends that her aim was to set up the Malala foundation to campaign for the 32 million girls around the world who are not at school. I am now appealing to the international community of global citizens to lead this day of action.”

Well, #GIRLWITHABOOK is going to help. On November 10th, we invite everyone to submit another picture. This time though, we ask you to write a sign that says, “I stand with Malala” and take a picture of yourself holding it. On that day, we want hundreds of these pictures to flood our inbox, Facebook page, tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, you name it.

So what do you say? Will you join us?

Olivia and me

You can also email your pictures to girlwithabookmovement@gmail.com.

The pictures we received beforehand, as well as the ones we hope to receive on November 10th, are all going to be included in the book we are compiling and eventually sending to Malala. By the way, the deadline to submit pictures to us for the book is November 13th!

Update on #GIRLWITHABOOK: Haters Don’t Stand a Chance

Lena Shareef Leave a comment

I think I’ve been in shock this whole week. I am simply blown away by the support that we have received at #GIRLWITHABOOK. When I wrote my last post, the whole thing still felt like an idea for a high school project. And now it feels like a real movement.

I had promised that I would update everyone on our progress with this movement so here goes. Since we started (which was about 10 days ago), three major things have happened.

1. Organizations have supported us. Some major ones to report are the National Women’s History Museum and Half the Sky Movement. Within the first couple of days, they had posted about us, tweeted about us and sent us pictures. After one particular Facebook post last Saturday from Half the Sky Movement, we got 400 likes on Facebook. All on that same Saturday. And just today, they tweeted a poster that lists 5 ways you can help girls like Malala. Submitting a picture to us is listed as one of the 5 ways.

2. I received an email from a WordPress editor congratulating me on having been picked to be “Freshly Pressed.” I was completely shocked. As you can tell, I have barely written/posted anything on my blog (it’s been a slow start). The editor wrote in the email, “We really enjoyed [your post], and we know the rest of the WordPress.com community will too – this movement is a wonderful idea, and I’m glad we can help spread the word!” I was amazed and frankly, just touched by the support we received from WordPress. Not only was it cool to finally get some comments on my blog, but their promotion of #GIRLWITHABOOK increased our momentum by tenfold.

We reached 1000 likes on Facebook! Of course, now we’re past that 🙂

3. Two days ago, we got an email from the UN. That’s right. The United Nations. I’m pretty sure I had to read that email 3 times before it all sunk in. They congratulated us on our initiative and stated that they would like to join us on our call to action. Since then, they have tweeted about us, sent in pictures, and even blogged about us. In return, we are spreading the word about Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Education First initiative that he launched on September 26, 2012, as well as the work being done by Education Envoy Gordon Brown, especially about this petition.

Just a little over a week ago, neither Olivia nor I would have been able to predict any of this happening. I don’t think I, personally, even had expectations about this getting popular let alone becoming a movement. We started this because Malala inspired us to act, to do something for her and girls like her. For a while though, I started thinking to myself, “This is all gonna die out. People are going to move on and forget about Malala and girls everywhere fighting to learn.” But everything that’s happened this past week proved me wrong. People do care. They’re not afraid to stand up for what’s right and best of all, they’re willing to help each other up and stand together. We’re going to win this fight. Against the Taliban, against extremists, against bullies, against haters. No matter how long it takes, we’re going to win in the end.

On a lighter note, Eid Mubarak everyone! May all my fellow Muslims out there have a lovely and blessed Eid ul-Adha. I’ll be getting some of my little cousins together and taking photos of them holding/reading books. Keep an eye out for the pictures on our Pinterest, Facebook, and tumblr! And all of YOU can do the same! I think Malala and girls all over Pakistan would love to see other families showing their support for them on Eid.

****If you want to join the #GIRLWITHABOOK movement, please submit a picture of yourself with a book to girlwithabookmovement@gmail.com. Make sure to include the title of the book and the city, state, country that you took your picture****

Feel free to post on our Facebook page or tweet at us @_girlwithabook as well. We invite submissions from girls, boys, men and women, because a cause like this needs support from everyone.