Taichung City Government international NGO center and The Garden of Hope Foundation have collaborated to conduct「2018 Asian Girls Power Camp」to invite 20 girls from Mongolia, Japan, HongKong, Vietnam, Malaysia, Nepal, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan etc., respectively, including 2015 Asian girl human rights award winner, Bipana Sharma, from Nepal and Jia-ling Hu from Taiwan who was graduated from the United States Naval Academy. Today(17th), they were all together attending the campaign at Wufeng international non-government organization (INGO)center. They wish to encourage the woman’s power to be valued, break the gender stereotypes and explore self.
「2018 Asian Girls Power Camp」opening ceremony was kicked off by the entries of Nepalese girl, Bipana Sharma, Malaysian girl, Shu-yi Lee, The Hope of Garden Foundation-Formosa girls award winner, Taiwanese girl, Yi-hsuan Lin, Se-yin Fang etc. with the girl flag held. They raised the proposal of「Girl declaration」under a serious but warm atmosphere.
Mayor Chia-lung Lin , Director of Education Bureau Fu-Yuan Peng, Director of Social Affairs Bureau Chien-der Lu, Director of Fire Bureau Huan-Chang Hsiao from the City Government, Chief Executive Officer of international affairs committee Se-chi Tung, Director of Central Officer, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tzu-cheng Sun, Gender Equality Committee of the Executive Yuan, Deputy Director Hua-yu Deng, Comprehensive planning office, Ministry of Culture, Deputy Director Chiu-yi Wei, The Garden of Hope Foundation, Chief Executive Officer Huei-ron Ji, the founder of「World NGO day」, Marcis Liors Skadmanis, Legislators Hsin-chun Ho, Mang-li Chen and Navy of ROC Ensign Jia-ling Hu etc. were present to the event to encourage the girls to enjoy their splendid lives.
「Build Taichung to be the most girl friendly livable city!」Mayor Lin said, United Nations have announced 11th October of every year will be the「International girl’s day」and he has ever worked with The Garden of Hope Foundation when he’s the Legislator. They worked together to promote 11th October of every year to be the「Taiwan girl’s day」as well. After he inaugurated as the Mayor of Taichung, he is aggressively building the「Garden of girls in Taichung」to make it become the first girl exclusive place in Taiwan. The objective of the garden is to have the women to cultivate their professionalism and interests to show their talents in a place for them exclusively in addition to the schools.
Mayor Lin said, Taichung has built「international non-government organization (INGO) center」at Guangfu Village in Wufeng and he’s happy to see the camp activities collaborated with The Garden of Hope Foundation were held at Guangfu Village, it’s definitely a perfect place to have these activities. Not only more international communications will be expected to take place in Taichung but also the girls will be encouraged to explore themselves through these activities.
「Investing on girls is investing on the future!」The Garden of Hope Foundation, Chief Executive Officer Huei-ron Ji highlighted, the spirit of 「girl’s day」is「Investments on girls are the smartest investments of the country」so the objective of the event is to empower girls so many girls were invited to connect with each other, including 20 girls from Mongolia, Japan, HongKong, Vietnam, Malaysia, Nepal, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan etc., respectively, to join in the camp activities lasting for 4 days and 3 nights. Through these communications, everyone can bring the energy of girls they learned back to the home country to influence more people to value the gender equity.
「Be proud of being a girl!」Jia-ling Hu, graduated from the United States Naval Academy, has shared, when she was in the naval academy, she was one of the minors in gender and race so she faced a lot of challenges. But she learned a lot as well. She insisted the belief of「There is no difference between girls and the others」so she survived under the challenges. When she saw the football players doing push-ups, it seemed very exhausting for everyone; but she can handle that as well if the other people can.
Jia-ling Hu has quote the words of her father,「Don’t limit yourself in challenges or the challenges will limit your growth.」. She encouraged the girls from the audience,「Just do it!」is the simple truth. Any challenge will become the special experiences, girls, don’t doubt your own capabilities and do what you want to boldly. You can do anything and will do it better than the others sometimes.
The Garden of Hope Foundation Formosa girls award winner, Taiwanese girl Se-Yin Fang said, there were limited empower girls related activities but now there are many international or national exposures of the girls. The energy and power of the girls have been seen so the girls have the opportunities to step ahead and speak up.
The officer of international non-government organization center of the City Government said, The Garden of Hope Foundation has started to promote the activity of「Asian Girls Campaign」from 2012. During the past three years, we’ve worked with 24 countries in Asia and near 250 organizations to propose the human rights of girls so there has been some very close relationships among us. This empower campaign is targeted at the teenager girls aged 13 to 18 years old in Asia. Taiwanese girls and some Asian Girls Human Right Ambassadors were participating in the related activities to promote the gender equity and facilitate the international experience sharing of teenagers so the role of the international NGO center as the experiences exchange platform can be addressed through these activities.