On March 19, 2022, Beijing time, the “Side Forum of the 66th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women,” hosted by the UN NGO P.R.I.D.E., concluded successfully. Themed “Building Bridges: Youth and Junior Youth for Peace and Justice,” the forum brought together outstanding youth and junior youth from countries around the world to share how they have striven to meet society's challenges during the pandemic. Dr. Rao Yu'an, founder of P.R.I.D.E. Headquarters, and Joan Rao, Chair of the Board, presided over the meeting. Representatives of members from the European branch, as well as Zhao Yuanhong, Director-General for the Asia-Pacific Region, Ou Jing, Secretary-General, Xing Haiyan, Deputy Director-General, and Liu Meng, Deputy Secretary-General, each took part in the meeting.
Three Chinese youths, representing the Asia-Pacific region, exchanged views with young people from countries around the world, recounting their inspiring stories at the international conference and building bridges of information sharing and solidarity and mutual assistance.
Sangji Dongzhi: Learning and Talent Advancing Together, Bridging the Education Gap
Sangji Dongzhi is a Tu ethnic boy from Northwest China, currently in the ninth grade at Shanghai Pinghe Bilingual School. At the meeting, he shared his volunteer experience of fighting educational inequality during the pandemic. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, everyone's way of life and pace have been changed. Sangji Dongzhi witnessed with his own eyes the enormous changes taking place across the world, and was moved by the stories of people from all walks of life striving to fight the virus since the pandemic. Yet for a teenager like him, he could neither cure the sick like medical workers, nor become a community anti-epidemic volunteer because of his studies, but he kept trying to help others in other ways.
After the outbreak, having long been concerned about the social problem of unbalanced urban-rural education, Sangji Dongzhi tried, alongside his studies, to use his own strength to explore ways to bridge the education gap between urban and rural areas. Drawing on his excellent English skills, he used the online services of remote applications to set up online English courses for children in geographically remote areas who could not access quality educational resources, giving free guidance twice a week on spoken and listening English to children in remote areas. He also set up a special class just for children in ethnic-minority areas of Qinghai, encouraging them to learn English well and open another window onto the world. During this period, Sangji Dongzhi formed deep friendships with his young classmates; he both helped others and trained himself, spending a remarkably meaningful and joyful online time together with children from different regions. During the pandemic, Sangji Dongzhi advanced in both learning and talent, paid attention to the problem of unbalanced educational resources in society and tried to put his efforts into action, actively cultivating his own outstanding sense of social responsibility and building a bridge of solidarity and friendship among young people through their interactions.
Dong Meiyan: Breaking Prejudice, Rejecting Disease Discrimination
Dong Meiyan is a high school student from Shanghai Pinghe Bilingual School. In her speech she shared a piece of social research of hers: how the social perception bias toward gynecological diseases affects women. Starting from her own experience of illness, Dong Meiyan came to understand first-hand how society's prejudice against gynecological diseases affected her own life. Proceeding from this issue, she began to apply what she had learned in
class, using the methods of online ethnography and qualitative research to explore how social prejudice toward gynecological diseases affects the lives of women or girls.
In the course of her research, Dong Meiyan found that most girls feel ashamed of having gynecological diseases; although with the progress of the times people's understanding of gynecological diseases is gradually deepening, the majority of people still hold a certain prejudice against them, and these social prejudices seriously affect women's lives and have even led to serious social problems. Starting from her own experience and through solid field research, Dong Meiyan pointed out the gender-based disease stereotypes that exist in society. She called on everyone to break long-standing social prejudices and reject discrimination against gynecological diseases, so as to reduce the negative impact on women caused by the stigmatization of gynecological diseases, reflecting the outstanding research ability and the remarkable sense of social responsibility of young people.
Ling Yixuan: In the Name of Debate, Showing Her True Self
Ling Yixuan is a high school student from the International Division of Shanghai High School and a contestant in the school's debate championships, but the arrival of the pandemic made it impossible for her to take part in debate activities in person. She came to keenly realize how the pandemic had changed her way of life, and tried to use online interactive platforms to train herself and lead the classmates around her to jointly resist the life challenges brought by the pandemic.
At the meeting, Ling Yixuan shared her experience of fighting the pandemic through debate using online platforms during the outbreak. During the pandemic, she not only used her time alone to read a great many books, enriching her debate material and honing her debating skills, but also, through day-after-day accumulated effort, built a debate team of nearly five hundred people, made a group of like-minded friends who love debating, and held many debate competitions. In the process of organizing these activities, she greatly relieved everyone's sense of psychological confinement during the pandemic. In recent years, she has successively organized and taken part in more than 100 debate competitions, and as one of the core organizers and speakers of the 2021 “Women Pride Debate Open,” she held and participated in seminars on gender equality, and raised 9,532 yuan for her team, donating the funds to a feminist charity. In the name of debate, Ling Yixuan used her concrete actions to fight the life challenges brought by the pandemic, showing her own style in her constant pursuit of progress and demonstrating the remarkable leadership of young people.
The prologue of the new era is to be written by the new generation of youth, and the brilliance of the new era needs young people to display. At this “Side Forum of the 66th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women,” hosted by the UN NGO P.R.I.D.E., three youths from China, on behalf of the Asia-Pacific region, shared their inspiring stories during the pandemic, deepening understanding among young people from countries around the world; their elegance became a beautiful and bright sight at this conference.
Source: Pacific Rim Institute for Development and Education (P.R.I.D.E.)