Hi everyone. My name is Martha, I'm twenty-one and in my third year studying Politics and International Relations at Cardiff University.
I am involved in Full Circle's Youth Advisory Panel because I am passionate about women's empowerment and preventing all types of violence, not just violence against women, and in particular campus violence. Being part of the Youth Advisory Panel makes me feel like I am making a difference in Wales, empowering girls to be more confident and comfortable with themselves and to grow into the women they want to be - in a safe & secure environment, free from violence, or the threat of violence. Although I have always been sure of what I wanted to be - no matter how many times that has changed - I have not always been confident about who I am, or what I look like - and neither have most of my friends. That is why I think the work of Full Circle and its sister company Girls Circle is not only important, it is essential. Women & girls everywhere and I mean everywhere, not just in Wales, should be free to not only feel good about themselves, but to feel amazing about their bodies, their race, their gender identity, their jobs, their role in society, whether that be student, or lecturer, or mother, or daughter, cleaner or company CEO. Full Circle & Girls Circle aim to work wherever & however possible to empower women to be themselves and stand up to sexual & gender prejudice wherever it occurs and I'm delighted to be a part of an organisation giving young girls this kind of support.
At university, I am one of two Presidents for the Domestic Violence Awareness Society and we have hosted many fundraising events and awareness campaigns. Recently I have been working with the wellbeing team who are launching a team of staff to respond to disclosures of campus violence. We have planned a week of events, including an empowerment workshop by Full Circle at the university, to promote this service and raise awareness of violence on campus and signpost women & girls to help wherever & whenever it is needed. I started getting more actively involved in trying to change the stigma surrounding violence on campus because I had heard far too many stories from my friends about situations where they felt something wasn’t quite right but that they didn’t see as sexual harassment, violence or assault. However, I would disagree. Unfortunately as statistics suggest one in three female students will experience some form of sexual assault on campus and 90% of these incidents won’t be reported. It saddens me to say that I believe the numbers are even more shocking in reality as every one of my female friends has a story, some have more than one, of inappropriate behaviour by men, yet none have reported a single incident. Ask any female student if they’ve been groped and the answer will be yes. Sexual harassment in the form of groping appears to have been normalised and perceived as ok and some boys have even told me they see it as the same thing as giving a compliment. This makes me question – where has it all gone wrong? Thinking back to school, I didn’t have sexual and healthy relationship education – perhaps if we had been taught about the most important aspects of sex and relationships such as consent and the right to your own body, many of the incidents I’m aware of might never have happened. There is a lack of international conversation about harassment that leads to behaviour that is inappropriate at best, and in all too many cases, illegal. This is a cultural & societal crisis whose reality makes the work of Full Circle not just important, but essential.
Being a politics student has taught me many skills, one of the most valuable has been to stand up and use my voice to influence change in areas I care about most. Being part of all these great activities has really pushed me to do more about women's empowerment, raise awareness of campus violence, and hopefully change attitudes & cultures so that anybody coming to this university and this city knows that violence is not okay, it is wrong, and if you're doing it, you have to stop! Violence diminishes us all, the transgressed & the transgressors, & only leads to unhappiness and it is the things we feel most unhappy about, that we must be most determined to change.
So today I'm proud to celebrate the International Day of the Girl a day that deserves as much attention as we can give it and with all of the inspiring people in this room, I hope we can create the change that's needed for girls in Wales.
Thank you.
I am involved in Full Circle's Youth Advisory Panel because I am passionate about women's empowerment and preventing all types of violence, not just violence against women, and in particular campus violence. Being part of the Youth Advisory Panel makes me feel like I am making a difference in Wales, empowering girls to be more confident and comfortable with themselves and to grow into the women they want to be - in a safe & secure environment, free from violence, or the threat of violence. Although I have always been sure of what I wanted to be - no matter how many times that has changed - I have not always been confident about who I am, or what I look like - and neither have most of my friends. That is why I think the work of Full Circle and its sister company Girls Circle is not only important, it is essential. Women & girls everywhere and I mean everywhere, not just in Wales, should be free to not only feel good about themselves, but to feel amazing about their bodies, their race, their gender identity, their jobs, their role in society, whether that be student, or lecturer, or mother, or daughter, cleaner or company CEO. Full Circle & Girls Circle aim to work wherever & however possible to empower women to be themselves and stand up to sexual & gender prejudice wherever it occurs and I'm delighted to be a part of an organisation giving young girls this kind of support.
At university, I am one of two Presidents for the Domestic Violence Awareness Society and we have hosted many fundraising events and awareness campaigns. Recently I have been working with the wellbeing team who are launching a team of staff to respond to disclosures of campus violence. We have planned a week of events, including an empowerment workshop by Full Circle at the university, to promote this service and raise awareness of violence on campus and signpost women & girls to help wherever & whenever it is needed. I started getting more actively involved in trying to change the stigma surrounding violence on campus because I had heard far too many stories from my friends about situations where they felt something wasn’t quite right but that they didn’t see as sexual harassment, violence or assault. However, I would disagree. Unfortunately as statistics suggest one in three female students will experience some form of sexual assault on campus and 90% of these incidents won’t be reported. It saddens me to say that I believe the numbers are even more shocking in reality as every one of my female friends has a story, some have more than one, of inappropriate behaviour by men, yet none have reported a single incident. Ask any female student if they’ve been groped and the answer will be yes. Sexual harassment in the form of groping appears to have been normalised and perceived as ok and some boys have even told me they see it as the same thing as giving a compliment. This makes me question – where has it all gone wrong? Thinking back to school, I didn’t have sexual and healthy relationship education – perhaps if we had been taught about the most important aspects of sex and relationships such as consent and the right to your own body, many of the incidents I’m aware of might never have happened. There is a lack of international conversation about harassment that leads to behaviour that is inappropriate at best, and in all too many cases, illegal. This is a cultural & societal crisis whose reality makes the work of Full Circle not just important, but essential.
Being a politics student has taught me many skills, one of the most valuable has been to stand up and use my voice to influence change in areas I care about most. Being part of all these great activities has really pushed me to do more about women's empowerment, raise awareness of campus violence, and hopefully change attitudes & cultures so that anybody coming to this university and this city knows that violence is not okay, it is wrong, and if you're doing it, you have to stop! Violence diminishes us all, the transgressed & the transgressors, & only leads to unhappiness and it is the things we feel most unhappy about, that we must be most determined to change.
So today I'm proud to celebrate the International Day of the Girl a day that deserves as much attention as we can give it and with all of the inspiring people in this room, I hope we can create the change that's needed for girls in Wales.
Thank you.
