‘Their stories are incredible’: NGO Room to Read looks to empower girls everywhere through multimedia campaign She Creates Change

Adolescent girls are disproportionately at risk of being denied access to education, and NGO Room to Read’s multimedia campaign She Creates Change takes this on

Featuring films, books and audio stories about young women overcoming adversity, it aims inspire others to ‘make informed choices’ and ‘shape their future’

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Yashika from India is one of the inspiring young women whose stories feature in Room to Read’s She Creates Change campaign, which aims to encourage girls to “shape their future”. Photo: Room to Read

Published: 4:15am, 11 Oct 2023Updated: 9:40am, 12 Oct 2023

October 11 is International Day of the Girl, a global movement promoting girls’ empowerment while addressing the challenges they face.

There are many.

According to the United Nations, around 90 per cent of adolescent girls and young women in low-income countries do not use the internet – their male peers are twice as likely to be online – while girls aged five to 14 globally spend 160 million more hours each day than boys the same age providing unpaid care and doing domestic work.

More than 98 million adolescent girls are not in school, with poverty, child marriage, early pregnancy and trafficking among the reasons they are deprived of their fundamental right to education.

Room to Read chief executive Geetha Murali helps a girl in a classroom. Photo: Room to Read

Room to Read, a non-profit organisation that’s committed to ending global illiteracy, continues to play its part in breaking down gender barriers with its latest campaign, She Creates Change – a multimedia storytelling initiative comprising animated and live-action films, books, and audio stories.