*Smiling* In approximately 15 hours I will be on a plane to Chile. Finally the date is here and I couldn’t be more ecstatic. I have done my research, I have gotten my shots, I have packed my suitcase. All I need is to get through this last day of school and I will be set free! Sure, my mental list of things that can go wrong continues to grow: kidnapping, loosing luggage, robbery, food poisoning, forgetting to pack a necessity, homesickness exc. However all that pales in comparison to the things I’m just itching to do once I land.

The past week in a word, was hectic. While maintaing my increasing work load, I had no less then three meetings with my fellow ambassador-Abiba and one of our chaperons- Sally. We finished off our presentation about America, as well as worked through the final details of our itinerary. Thank god that part is over! There is nothing like planning for a trip, when all you want is to actually be on it. One upside to this, though, was five days ago finding, to my astonishment, a page long article about the program in the CNY Women magazine. Sure I had posed for a couple of pictures and talked to a woman about the organization, but I thought nothing of it. It was quite a surprise to see my face smiling up at me from the bottom of a page. Of course I instantly posted a pic to Instagram and Facebook. But, upon thinking about it I became even more elated. The article really proved to me that what I am doing matters, its something that people care about and will stop and admire. I guess the acknowledgement that my ideas of women are in fact important, really meant a lot to me. Ironically the next day a reporter from the New Times called me for an interview. That was pretty crazy! So I expect to be in another article by the time I get back! Its funny, even after doing a magazine project for english, seeing how easy it is to write an article in that format, I still feel pretty psyched to be in an actual one. 

I have come to realize that the program has consumed my life. In addition (to everything for mentioned),  I organized a bowling date on Sunday with the other girls from the program who were not picked to go on the trip.  What I thought was going to be lame attempt by me to get to know the girls, instead went surprisingly well. No one seemed to resent the fact that I was picked instead of them (a huge weight off my shoulders). They opened up, congratulated me, gave me advice as well as told me things they wanted the other ambassadors to know. In the end, Abiba and I came away with a newfound sense of their personalities outside the structured dialog sessions we’ve had. This, will prove invaluable, for as this “Girl Ambassador for Human Rights” I am suppose to represent my country as well as girls my age. “How am I suppose to do this accurately?” I thought. Well now I believe I can not only show who I am and what I believe to the Chilean girls, but also my other Syracuse counter-parts. My only hope is that I will be able to do this while maintaing my class and learning about what their girls believe- (so I can relay it back to our girls in America). So I guess all I have left to say is wish me luck! I can’t wait to share my experiences with you all!


Pictured above is six of the girls who attended my 
bowling event. Top left to right= Rachel E., Caroline C., 
Bryanna P., Janna P. Bottom= Mikayla C-H (me) and Abiba S.

It's me, i'm back! My excitement continues to swell as the days to my Chile trip tick away. Just 13! I'm still in awe, that I have been given this awesome chance to see the world outside my Fayetteville community. I have never been the most excelled speaker/ writer or the most imaginative individual. However I believe I was chosen, because I make up for my faults in my spirit of adventure, commitment to the issues and enthusiasm for the project. On the other hand Abiba is quite loquacious, with the ability to express her mind in original, beautiful ways. Though I envy this talent, I think together we will make a terrific team and shall do a great job of representing the USA. 

On and off we have been conferring on Facebook, to get to know each other better, as well as to coordinate for the trip. We discuss our expectations of the process, ideas we would like to share about women's rights and questions we would like to ask the girls from Chile and Sri Lanka. For example I want to know if like here, women are still misrepresented in government, face body issues from the media, have lower paying jobs and are overall discriminated against by men. But I would also like to know how their lives are similar to ours, school, music, friend and social networking wise. For all of this, I plan to keep a journal, and every night detail our adventures so I can keep the experiences with me, (and share them when I get home). Another important topic we have touched on is bringing thank you presents for our hosts. We want the gifts to show our gratitude in addition to being a personal memento of meeting us. So, Abiba and I have tenuously decided on friendship bracelets and rainbow catchers that we will both hand make. Hopefully the girls will like them! However my goal is that the gesture will say more than the actual gift, for we want to be forming bonds that will last longer than just our trip duration. This is particularly important to the Coalition, because the whole point of the program is to dialog about our experiences so we can get to know the others better (while also putting the US in a positive light). 

Last week Abiba, our parents and I met with Sally Roesh Wagner the director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage House and one of the two adults who shall be accompanying us. We received our plane tickets and a brief, expected schedule of our time there. We will all be traveling together the night of March 13th, first to Atlanta, Georgia then on to Santiago (pictured below) for a ten hour flight! I didn't fully realize how far away we would be going until I thought about how much ground the plane will cover. We will be in a different continent, a different season and a major city that speaks a different language. If you stop and think about this, thats a lot to take on...AND I CANT WAIT. We have little knowledge of our exact itinerary, I don't even think the people there know it themselves. For many this lack of definition and structure could be scary in a new place, but I'm more than ready to embrace it. My only hope is that our free time from discussions will be spent talking to the girls informally about their lives. This of course is in addition to sight seeing, and yes shopping. There are so many ways I can think of to emirs ourselves in the culture, I only wish we could do all of them in our six day trip! 

Hello World! Reporting back, its Mikayla Cleary-Hammarstedt. Before divulging into the specifics of my upcoming trip and the programs' dialog meetings, I thought it would be prudent to explain why I got involved and am so invested in this initiative. It all began when my mother was the director of Girls Inc. Through her and taking part in the inner city program I developed a great sense of pride in being a woman and being "strong, smart and bold", which has not left me to this day. I was always taught to push my limits, never accept defeat and to not let my opportunities be limited by gender discrimination. In hand with these sentiments, my parents helped me to recognize where inequalities exist and to always question and challenge them (in a world where we are all supposedly equal). 

Women's history has always been a fascinating subject to me. Throughout my life I have developed a keen eye for it because it amazes me to see how unjust our pasts are and yet to see how far we've come. If you just stop and consider this, you may find lots of history embedded in your very community. For example, my city of Fayetteville was home to womens rights activist Matilda Joslyn Gage, who was in league with Susan B. Anthony and Elisabeth Cady Stanton. However she went even farther than push for the right to vote, because she was not held down by conservative religious beliefs as many others were at the time. Her views were among the most radical, and can be see in her book "Women, Church and State", including: equal pay and right to hold office for women, as well as freedom for blacks, and the end of discrimination towards the local Haudenosaunee. If I had not researched Gage on my own accord, I would never have taken the time out to even consider applying for the very program I am so delighted to be in today. Because of this I firmly stand by my belief that education, particularly in young girls is of the utmost importance. Thanks to my knowledge (which don't get me wrong is fairly minimal), I have been blessed with an opportunity to expand my viewpoints and leadership skills as I learn about other situations of women around the world. 

In the meantime I observe the non-equity of women in society all around me. As an aspiring environmental engineer the unequal women's involvement is in STEM fields is vividly clear, just by some of my brief college visits. Frankly, it still shocks me for in the course of our history women have proven that we are capable of achieving just as much as men, however something still seems to be holding us back. This division can be seen in high school sports, high power jobs (CEOs, engineers, exc.), representation in government,  average wage rates, and stay at home parents. This is unacceptable. I hope that with the new dialog and group oratory skills I acquire, through this Girl Ambassador Program, I will help make a difference through my call for change. Lastly (some food for thought for the end of this entry), I recently learned about a treaty known as CEDAW which is primarily in action to protect women and girl's basic rights by reading an article. This seems great right? So why is it that the US is one of only six nations in the UN not to have ratified it? By denying it our government is not taking a stand against the many violations to women's rights that are being committed throughout the world. 

I snatched my phone of the desk tearing my eyes off my computer screen. “Hello?” I asked the unknown number between chews of my sandwich. “Hi Mikayla, it’s Sally Roesch Wagner from the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation. After careful consideration we have chosen you to accompany us for the Chile trip in March”. I practically choked.

Flashback four months ago to when I got a similar phone call informing me I had been accepted to the year long initiative, “Girl Ambassadors for Human Rights.” The program is designed to inspire a new generation of feminists, to explore and share their experiences through social media. With the help of community leaders, 50 teenage girls from Chile, Sri Lanka, and the US discuss their local women’s history and gender discrimination. I became informed of this unique association through my mother, a long time women's rights advocate, with whom I agreed it would provide a great deal of knowledge and opportunity for me to develop as my own individual. The purpose is to allow the participants (myself included) to create person to person connections with girls around the world and to share our facilitated dialog with our communities. Thus far the group has presented invaluable experiences for me to get to know the girls living in upstate New York as well as from our sister Museums in Chile and Sri Lanka. We have talked about many issues such as women's equality in the work force, the double standards with men, unequal representation in politics, sports imbalance, and sexual discrimination. Hearing each individuals personal stories and responses has been extremely profound and eye opening. These are people I would never have met in my daily life, and yet we all share a similar passion for women's issues and a need to express ourselves. To know that their are people who value your opinion and wish to impart their own ideas on you is a great feeling. Through Skype sessions we have become to understand that even hundreds of miles away we all face the same obstacles and a wish to address them together.

Now with the knowledge that I will be one of two girls from the U.S. to travel to Chile as an ambassador through the Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, I have decided to document my adventures as I continue to learn and grow from my involvement in the program. Stay tuned as I detail my journey in becoming an ambassador for human rights.