Through a girl's lens

A lot has been said about education. But when comes to girls and women people usually focus more on Rights and the word Education is less spoken. And I've wondered why?
Because before the Girls20Summit 2013, where I represented the European Union, I have heard about women empowerment, but frequently the topic was around their Rights. The right to education, the right of free will of choosing, the right to be on top positions in big companies... But somehow, striving for these rights is not enough! The rights doesn't bring concrete change. What I didn't realized is that more then rights we need investment, and that is when everything gets complicated!
We need to understand where exactly to invest, and how can we do it if most of our global leaders are men?

That is what is think is so special about the G(irls)20! We are not just a group of young women fighting for women empowerment. We look to the current challenges of our countries and just like the other G20 we come up with concrete solutions for that!

After coming back from Moscow I felt so much stronger! I think that is one of the proposes of the summit. But not only what I feel it matter, the most important thing is what I do with that feeling. Beside my community work I've started before the summit, I intend to do something else, that is why I am happy to say that I'm currently working in 2 different projects:
A blog to share my summer experience in the summit and in my volunteer internship in Bahrain, called Through a girl's lens! http://agirlslens.blogspot.pt/
I hope to inspire others girls from the EU to move from acknowledge the problems in their communities to act on them! Applying to programs like the Girls20Summit or to start their projects.

At the same time I am working to bring the Girl Rising movie to Portugal on the 11th October, the International Girls Day!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJsvklXhYaE)

For now that's it!
I'll keep updating new in here and I invet all of you to follow me on Twitter and Facebook:
https://twitter.com/marianajacinto
https://www.facebook.com/mariananevesjacinto

I would be happy to hear any suggestions, opinions and thoughts!
Thank you World Pulse!

Lots of love,
Mariana