Student Advocates for Gender Equality

SAGE

During the summer before Junior year, I reunited with my best friend from Japan who I haven't seen in over two years. As biracial students growing up in Japan, we had similar experiences from our childhood that connected us. As we were talking about the projects we were involved in and the Japanese election, we started to discuss how women are never represented in the Japanese government. I told her that my original goal was to come back to work in the National Diet of Japan, but realized that that was nearly impossible. I expressed to her that I wanted to help change the narrative surrounding women and politics from Hawai'i, and we quickly came up with an idea: a local branch of SAGE.

Through the guidance of Dr. Robyn Vierra, Claire and I created the Hawai'i SAGE branch. Our branch worked with a cohort from the American School in Japan (ASIJ) to learn more about gender inequality in Asia, what they are trying to do to decrease the education gap created by those inequalities. We decided to have weekly webinar sessions with students from ASIJ to talk about women's issues in our countries, and the similarities between the U.S and Japan. This experience was important to me because I have always struggled with finding intersections between my two identities, and these meetings helped me feel like I am still a part of the Japanese community.

The most memorable part of SAGE was working together on a project that we were passionate about. When the Taliban took over the Afghan government in 2021, women were prohibited from attending schools and receiving an education within their homes as well. We wanted to help those women continue their education, and decided to work with American University for Women (AUW) in Bangladesh to give scholarships and tutoring support to Afghan women. We had a webinar with Marsal, a University student from AUW, who couldn't say her last name because she had parents living in Afghanistan. She told us that going to AUW was a crucial step in her career because it taught women like her to become independent. After speaking with Marsal, the cohort and I decided to host pop-up thrift stores to raise money for scholarships sustainably, help tutor Afghan women who want to attend AUW, and host international webinars that feature women leaders in Japan.

We hosted a series of four webinars called Women in Asia to learn more about how leading entrepreneurs, educators, and leaders are combatting the narrative surrounding women in power, and what we can do as students to support these initiatives.

At the same time, I organized the thrift store to help raise scholarship money to send Afghan women to AUW. We received hundreds of donations from students and teachers across K-12, and were able to sell out all of our clothing. We also partnered with Plastic for a Purpose to sell their handmade pendants at the pop-up store.

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