Michelle Haimoff
What actions are you taking to promote and protect the health and rights of women and young people worldwide?
I am a founding member of NOW’s Young Feminist Task Force (YFTF). I am a blogger and an activist and I collaborate with and promote women whose life’s purpose is to help other women. My network consists of those at the largest human rights organizations (Amnesty, HRW, UNICEF) and women’s rights organizations (Feminist Majority, NARAL, NOW), politicians, bloggers, artists, photographers, filmmakers, and even schoolchildren. It is only by working together that we can achieve our joint goal of raising the status of women around the globe in our lifetime.
What is your vision of lasting change for yourself and for the world's young people?
My vision of lasting change for myself and for the world’s young people focuses on education. We must learn about problems, not in a vacuum, but in context. Currently, abuses against women aren’t even newsworthy anymore because they’re not new. Beyond compassion, we need to learn that helping women is a means to solving the problems of the world. The more people understand this, the more momentum will build towards elevating the status of women globally.
If you could tell world leaders one thing, what would it be?
As “Half the Sky” authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, as well as countless others, have shown us, it is only by empowering women that we can really change the world and make its people safer, healthier, better educated, happier and more productive. Of all of the causes, this is the most dire, this will end the most suffering, and for generations to come, this will help the greatest number of people.
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