In this op-ed, 17-year-old Gabriela Nadeau of Lakeland, Florida, explains what she learned as a participant and panelist at the Girl Up Leadership Summit.
I’d never gotten an email that read “Congratulations!” before — but I’ve also never gotten an email that made me cry tears of joy, either. But this is a summer of firsts, and a summer where I would really get to see if I was capable of making a difference.
I was asked by Girl Up, a United Nations Foundation campaign that seeks to empower girls (and some guys too!) to support vulnerable girls across the world through lobbying, fundraising, and advocacy, to join Team Strong, their newest initiative to promote strength in teen girls. With three other girls from Peru, England, and Uganda, I was picked to be a teen reporter at the Girl Up Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. in July and interview the guest speakers like Sophie Trudeau, Little Miss Flint, and Cara Delevingne — and to speak on my own panel. I was excited, and also very, very terrified.
Despite my nerves, I had the time of my life. It was such a transformative experience, so I’m here to share are some of the lessons I learned at the summit with Teen Vogue so you can apply them in your own life.
Girl Up asked me to speak on a panel in front of over 350 people. That there were a lot of people there to listen to me (including actress and Girl Up champion Monique Coleman!) wasn’t what made me scared, it was that they might not be interested in what I had to say. I was supposed to share the experiences that got me picked for Team Strong in the first place, which included some things that were very, very hard for me to talk about, like my issues with body image. I did my best, and afterward, people approached me to say how much they related, which was the best feeling ever. (I had to try pretty hard to keep myself from crying.) I made a difference to a few people, and that was more than enough to make the whole experience worthwhile.
At the partnership dinner Girl Up invited me to attend, I sat at the same table as Peter Yeo, President of the Better World Campaign and the Vice President of Public Policy and Advocacy at the United Nations Foundation, and Elizabeth Plank, senior correspondent at Vox media, both of whom I spoke to at length. Once the dinner was over, I immediately regretted not having business cards to hand to them, especially considering the career in diplomacy that I'm planning for. My biggest takeaway? It’s never too early to make business cards, because you never know who you are going to meet.
Maybe it sounds silly for a high school kid to network, but it’s so important. Networking got me this opportunity to write in Teen Vogue (Thank you Azmia!), and it allowed to me to help Girl Up land MuslimGirl founder Amani Al-Khatahtbeh as a speaker for the summit. Who you meet could take you far, so be serious when you put yourself out there.
As part of the program, we were set to interview other panelists, and I was most excited for to meet actress and Girl Up champion Cara Delevingne and feminist activist Adwoa Aboah. Before they went on stage to speak, it was Team Strong’s turn (I like to imagine that they heard every word we said), and then just after they finish, we were set to interview. To my dismay, after they came in to be interviewed, one of the Girl Up staffers told us we had to cut it down to one question. I asked if she meant one question each, but nope — she meant one question total. I had to compose myself (which you can see on the live video they posted on their Facebook to my eternal embarrassment!) and move on with the interview with complete confidence. I was disappointed after that we didn’t get to interact more with both of the incredible leaders, but the experience taught me so much. I realized that for the rest of my life, I will have to be flexible and professional, no matter the situation. I handled myself during this extremely stressful moment, which allowed me to see myself doing the same in the future.
When I interviewed journalist Lilia Luciano, she told me this very thing, and a little bit about some of the mistakes she's made throughout her career. I messed up my intro — we taped all of our interviews, but thankfully this one wasn’t live! — so we started over, and she told me that women, often felt inclined to erase our mistakes and try again, whereas men don’t feel the need to do this. Women have to be “perfect,” while men don't. There was truth in her words: at school, I’ve had to defend every mistake and choice I make, but I’ve never seen any guy have to do the same thing.
Lilia said that once she accepted her errors and the mistakes she’s made, her career advanced much further than she ever expected, to the point that she got to work with HBO. She was one of the people that taught me the most that day.
The experience was incredible not just because of the speakers I met, but because of my fellow summit attendees, too. For the first time, I felt free to be myself and I spoke freely. At school, I often feel restricted and ignored, but at the summit, people cared about the same issues as me — and while it’s never good to live in a bubble, having a supportive, sweet, and funny group to work among was incredible. No one there judged me for be outspoken, for how I dressed, or for being passionate about issues like women’s rights. If you ever feel like nobody from where you are respects you or that they all judge you, then it’s time for you to find a group of people who will take you for who you are.
Related: These Girl Scouts' Letters Will Make You Want to Be a Positive Change in Your Own Community
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