May the rebel girls always triumph

By Naim Ibrahim (Naimbe)

YOU ARE THE PROMISE

YOU ARE THE FORCE

DON’T STEP BACK,

AND EVERYONE

WILL MOVE FORWARD.

A little girl read the book. It was read, re-read, and re-read again. Over many days. For months on end. And then neatly tucked into the pocket of the backseat of my car where the book was forgotten and lost.

The book remained forgotten for many years until today when the book is suddenly rediscovered by another little girl - a four-year-old plucks the book out. And out with it comes all the stories of the rebel girls. Stories of women who beat incredible odds. Conquered insurmountable challenges and triumphed over unimaginable adversity.

MARYAM MIRZAKHANI an Iranian girl born in 1977 was never interested in math until the day her brother told her about a short and beautiful way of adding together all the numbers from 1 to 100. A mathematician named Carl Friedrich Gauss had discovered that 1+100=101, 2+99=101, 3+98=101 etc., so he had colcluded that the total would be fifty lots of 101, which is 5050. Maryam was inspired. Years later her phone rang. “You’ve won the Fields Medal,”, said a voice on the other end of the line. Maryam hung up, thinking it was a joke. But it wasn’t! She had become the first Iraninan - and the first woman in history – to win the world’s most prestigious award for mathematics.

RACHEL CARSON an American girl born in 1907 lived with her mother in a little town in the country side. There she discovered that chemicals were poisoning plants, animals, birds and even humans. She wrote a book called Silent Spring. The people who sold pesticides tried to stop her, but Rachel kept on talking about what she had learned. Silent Spring was voted one of the most important science books ever written.

Today is a special day for all of us to celebrate the outstanding stories about women and girls from Cleopatra to Anne Frank; Mother Theresa to Sudha Varghese; Madame Curie to Maryam Mirzakhani; Queen Elizabeth to Malala Yousafzai. The millions of nameless girls and mothers for their incredible sacrifices in their small ways to make the world a little more liveable, a life a little more comfortable. May the rebel girls always triumph.