23-year-old creates platform for girls from conflict-ridden nations to tell their stories

Sarah Little is a journalist and the 23-year-old founder of More to Her Story. It’s a platform where girls from all over the world can express themselves through poetry, music, film, personal essays and art. 

Little was working as the youngest fellow at the Lewis Institute at Babson College, which works to advance the global goals, when she got the idea to create the community after interviewing young women from countries like Ethiopia, Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan and Jordan. The women she interacted with had faced extraordinary challenges due to war, genocide, displacement, famine and misogyny. Little wanted to give these often overlooked voices a platform. 

During Little’s travels, supported by organizations including the United Nations Refugee Agency, many girls told her the same thing: they have nowhere to express themselves.

“The truth is, girls’ voices are too often silenced and suppressed around the world and I just want girls to be able to raise their voices about issues that matter to them and issues they haven’t felt comfortable talking about before,” Little told Female Empowerment Matters

One of the submissions on More To Her Story is by Donia, a 17-year-old Syrian who lives in a refugee camp in Jordan. The teenager posted a short video inside Azraq Refugee Camp

“Its been four years living here,” she says. “When we first came to the camp, there was no electricity. When we used to go to school and come back we tried to study, but could only in the day otherwise there was no light.” 

Another entry is by Reem El Attar, a Palestinian-Canadian. El Attar made an illustration of Isbah Mahdi wearing a t-shirt that reads, “My life is more important than your family honor.” 

“Women and girls are considered so worthless that they can be killed for absolutely no reason,” El Attar wrote in the caption. “Isbah was a 16-year-old Yemeni child who was brutally murdered by her three brothers after they tortured her and forced her to drink poison upon orders from their dad who lives abroad. They documented the whole process through pictures to show their dad.”

If this stuff sounds heavy that’s because the platform is an outlet for the real issues women and girls around the world face. 

More to Her Story is set to launch its podcast of the same name on October 1. Be on the lookout for Little’s book based on her experience visiting refugee camps, which is set to come out next year. 

If you enjoyed this story, check out how this college student decorates donated crutches to destigmatize them.

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