On Tuesday October 10th, the Preuss School UC San Diego held the first International Day of the Girl Child celebration ever organized in California. The celebration, open to all middle and high school girls, began at 2:30pm to 4:00pm and was held in the Walton Center.
Several distinguished individuals such as the president of Mesa College, a general manager of Starbucks, a U.S Navy Captain, a 6 time MUN winner, a representative from the office of Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, a representative from Scott Peters office, who also awarded the Preuss school with a proclamation, presented themselves and their stories for the girl scholars.
At the event the girls and the guest speakers sat down with them and touched upon the topics of body positivity, societal beauty standards, colorism, racism, stereotypes, sexism and much more. At the end of the event , all girls received a goodie bag.
“My experience with the International Day of the Girl Child event was honestly very emotional. I met and connected with a lot of wonderful people on a more personal level. This event showed me how girls can actually work together and overcome the stereotypes that are directed towards us saying that we cannot. I got to connect with many other girls here at Preuss and overall it was a good experience.”, expressed Yenatfanta Hailemariam (25’).
The event was planned in less than three weeks and was organized by Preuss high school volunteers with the help of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, which our vice principal, Ms. Brown, is a part of. Ms. Brown suggested to her sorority that they should do this event at Preuss, and so they provided the school $5,000 to carry it out. A total of 15 high school girls volunteered through a Google form.
One thing that Ms. Brown wishes she could have done differently was get a location on UCSD’s campus in order to have all Preuss girls attend.
“The goal of this event was to provide a space where girls could be elevated, where they can feel their voice is heard”, expressed Ms. Brown.
