I had always longed to be more involved in the world of activism, whether it was advocating for gender equality or for Armenia’s justice. Personally, I built a stronger connection with advocating for women’s rights particularly. One day, I decided to transform this passion for activism into conducting productive work. Surely I was familiar with the worldwide renown UN Women organization and it seemed quite impossible for me to work with them directly. Therefore, I happily discovered the Los Angeles USNC for UN Women. One could not imagine the excitement on my face when I found out that they had an open position for volunteers. I began as a volunteer, attending monthly chapter meetings and events, tabling for our cause, and conducting a lot of research. As I continued my work with the chapter, I began to work more directly with the Founder and President of the Greater LA Chapter USNC for UN Women, Cathy Hillman––a truly inspirational, hard working, and committed leader devoted to this cause. It was an honor for me to work directly with her on researching successful events the chapter was involved with or would soon host.
Throughout my time with the chapter, I have had several tasks and experience in advocacy (tabling and outreach), fundraising (contacting venues and food/drink donors for our events), research (on all of our events and projects), and social media (managing a Twitter and Pinterest account both involved with the chapter), allowing me to experience all of the major factors involved in activism overall.
Two years later, the high school internship was created, led by two college interns who worked with the chapter. Along with working directly with Cathy, I joined this amazing program as well. The internship was open to girls our age, therefore I encouraged Nayiri, Veronica, and Christine, three of my dearest friends, to join as well. I had the pleasure of working with high school interns who are enthusiastic, driven, creative, and very hard-working. The Girls in STEAM event was the highlight of our high school internship and presented the involvement of women and girls in various fields such as science, technology, math, engineering, and art. We had the privilege of organizing the event with our team and later on meeting the inspirational women who were the panelists. We worked on several research projects and hosted frequent meetings, whether they were in person or over the phone. After several months, I became the High School Internship Coordinator for the chapter. Currently, my team and I are working on promoting our planned activities for Safe Cities Day and a few other events we will be hosting mid-January.
Through the means of social media and research, we are doing outreach for our Twitter Chat which is to be held on January 11, discussing the development of safe cities for women and girls. The goal is to celebrate Safe Cities Day (January 11), launch our Women Mobility Survey, create a conversation around urban design/planning, mobility, and women, and to increase the number of individuals interested in making safer cities for women and girls to reside in. By using the hashtags #SafeCities and #UrbanDesign4Women, our team will be stimulating a conversation on this very important topic.
Working with such inspirational individuals has been an absolute honor for me. I truly mean it when I say I was blessed to find and be a part of such an amazing cause. Even when the time comes for me to graduate, I will not end my work with the chapter. So far, I have had an amazing three years working with brilliant-minded women who have paved the way for girls like me to believe that we can be anything we set our minds to. I am beyond excited for the work we will conduct in the very near future and I could not be more thankful to be a part of this journey!
P.S. You are more than welcome to take our free survey (http://bit.ly/WomenMobilitySurvey) and take part in our Twitter Chat on January 11! If you are curious about our work and would like to keep up with the chapter, you may find @UNwomenLA on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Written by: Aelita Arshakyan
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