By Maya Kostov

Girls face discrimination and violence in all settings, often in places where they should be protected – in the home, in school, and in the immediate community. If you do not already know, Seniors Clara Moffitt, Hayden Wisneski, Brooke Kirk, and myself, are on the Girl Up Arizona Coalition Board. I am the Director of Events, Brooke is the Director of Finance, Hayden is the Director of Communications, and Clara is the State Coalition Lead of the organization.

Girl Up is a non-profit United Nations Foundation dedicated to assisting the United Nations in programs that support adolescent girls in underserved communities worldwide. Girl Up enables girls to empower other girls globally to advance their progress in health, safety, education and leadership in their communities. Issues Girl Up cares about include but are not limited to gender equality, gender violence, education, health, and leadership.

Girl Up’s goal when advocating against domestic violence is to prevent and protect girls from all forms of gender-based violence, abuse and exploitation, and ensure that girls who experience violence receive prompt protection, services and access to justice.

As a part of our mission as a Girl Up Coalition Board to raise money and advocate for Girl Up, we organized a Domestic Violence Webinar to learn the basics of domestic violence and how we as young adults can make a difference. We organized it as a Zoom seminar, where the attendees choose from two speakers and divide into breakout rooms to listen to the presentations.

Our two speakers were Donna Bartos, CEO of Bloom365, and our very own Dr. Salcido. Bloom365 is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and addressing issues of domestic violence. Donna gave a presentation and led a discussion about how Covid19 is affecting and aggravating abusive relationships and what can be done.

Dr. Salcido led a more in-depth presentation and discussion about the various aspects of domestic violence: signs, power wheels, and a discussion on immigrant communities. Before her time at Tempe Prep, Dr. Salcido worked on domestic violence issues for about twenty years as a case manager and later conducted research on domestic violence while completing her MA in Anthropology and PhD in Justice Studies at Arizona State University.

We wrapped the event up with some advocacy letter writing time, where we had the attendees of the event draft emails to our state representatives thanking them for supporting and sponsoring S.3297: Preventing Abuse and Neglect of Vulnerable Americans Act of 2020. This bipartisan legislation is important to ensure safety of intellectually disabled individuals and those going through abuse. This bill is essential because when we prevent this from happening, we provide support for underprivileged populations experiencing abuse in their lives.

Tempe Prep senior and attendee of the webinar Kylie Klassen says, “My favorite part of the Girl Up Seminar was hearing from two inspirational women and all of the amazing things they have done in their lives. I left the seminar truly inspired.”

Hayden Wisneski says, “I’m super happy with the way the event turned out! I love all of the girls involved and how hard they worked to make the event happen in such a short time! Being able to speak and listen to people who have dedicated their lives to helping victims of gender-based violence is so inspirational and I will never forget it!”

Overall, this was a life-changing and empowering seminar. Keep an eye out for other seminars the Arizona Coalition Board has planned!