In honor of World Day of Social Justice, members of the global 2022-2023 Girl Up Teen Advisory Board pen a powerful poem envisioning a world where girls and women are truly free to live, to do, to be. Read on for their heartfelt words and watch a few Teen Advisors recite their freedom anthem for equal rights and justice below.
“Until All of Us Are Free”
Until all of us are free
Aazad.
To live undaunted, for it is only half a life,
If it is lived with fear.
To live unafraid of walking dark nights alone, free of unease at every footstep,
Menace at every leer.
To dress and express, myself as I wish
Without being told that my honour lies, not in character,
But in the clothes I wear.
Until all of us are free
Uhuru
Where I can hold the hand of the one who brings me comfort and love
Without fear and shame of my identity.
Until my love is seen as equal to the status quo,
I will hold out hope
For a better, more loving tomorrow.
Until all of us are free
Ziyou.
Whisper into rivers, mountains, gardens
Root yourself in foremothers
Ada, Marie, Rosalind, repeat like a calling
Pull apart systems, then put them back again
Science as the heartbeat of your home
Until all of us are free
Oru Swathanthra Stree.
To be the change we want to see
To lead, to chart our own destiny
Where a hijabi girl isn’t followed for ‘looking suspicious’, by the police,
Where a Dalit woman isn’t asked what use studying will be;
Where a young Black girl recites a poem at the President’s ceremony,
And elsewhere, a tribal woman dons her traditional Santhali saree,
As she takes oath to lead the world’s largest democracy.
Until all of us are free
Qhispikay
To learn and teach and be taught
To grow our minds far beyond where our feet could ever take us
To know that the only thing that stands between us and our dreams is our will to succeed
A world where an educated woman strikes admiration, not fear, in the hearts of her people
Where her mind is nurtured and her thoughts are heard
For she has something to share that’s worth listening to
Until all of us are free
Livres
To live in a world our sisters should foresee
To breathe clean air
Until Mother Earth, we care
Till our oceans are released from misuse
And the deadly carbon emissions reduce
Some chains are palpable, yet others veiled
Some bind us immobile, others snake around, an insidious embrace;
Yet the mark they leave is indelible, for reddened wrists and a wistful soul, share
A desire to be free. To see our sisters free.
We won’t, we shan’t, we cannot stop
Speaking, fighting, teaching, writing,
Listening, learning, dreaming, yearning
Until all of us are free.
For none of us are free,
Until all of us are free.
This poem was written by a group of Teen Advisors from the 2022-2023 Class, including Saundarya & Isabel. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are the writers’ own.
