She considered the job at the UN too rigid and quit to be able to concentrate on her own project. Women’s situation has imbued her work – from flooding aid in Pakistan, to her present struggle for a global consciousness.
“I wanted to create a new way to work with women’s rights”, says Julia Wiklander.
With calm and self-confident steps she’s moving across the stage at the high school where today’s lecture is given, while telling about her background. After giving a quick personal presentation she excuses herself for having spoken so long about herself, and explains that the school had asked her to do so. Quickly she crosses over to the subject she is passionate about: to strengthen women across the world.
“My aim is not to make myself heard. I want to strengthen other’s voices.”
Her idea is to put forward issues through the global network Girls’ Globe, which she founded in 2010. At Procivita’s high school in Helsingborg she is giving a workshop to inspire the students to work with sustainable projects for women in developing countries, during their project work next year.
From personal experience and statistics she gives an account for women’s situation around the globe. Her voice doesn’t stumble one single time. Everybody listens intensively when she’s talking about women’s situation in Niger, where one out of seven women dies during their pregnancy. As her voice breaks, on the edge of crying, there are probably many others struggling to hold their tears back. The devotion and cordiality must affect everyone in the assembly hall.
“These are injustices we can do something about”, says Julia Wiklander.
The first twelve years of her life she spent, with her parents, in India, Egypt and Pakistan. Her experience from these places and the wish to fight the injustices she witnessed there has remained, being a part of her childhood. She was inspired by her parents’ commitment – her mother’s desire to strengthen women’s rights and her father’s work with rural development. They are a part of the reason why Julia has become the devoted and dedicated person she is today. Another thing that also became an inspiration was all the politically engaged people in Lund she met during her studies.
“I really enjoyed coming to Lund to meet all kinds of people who all seem to be passionate about something”, Julia Wiklander says.
After studying political science she gained an interest in national economy and became specialised at developing economies. She discovered how interesting she found the logic and statistics that could show, by numbers, what the effort resulted in and what was made to diminish poverty, in reality. During her economic studies she was in both Singapore and India.
“When coming to India, I felt at home since I had grown up there, but it was a different world as I did no longer live that protected life I did as a child”, says Julia Wiklander.
Back in Sweden, with India still fresh in her memory, she wrote an essay on women’s empowerment in society. The injustices she had become aware of became an inspiration and a driving force.
“Women cannot move about freely in India. I wanted to find a reason. Why is she beaten at home? Why isn’t she given the right to decide over her own life? I wanted to do something about that; it is not acceptable”, she says.
After the University she got a job at the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, which work with population issues, concerning sexual and reproductive health amongst other things. During the flooding in Pakistan 2010 she saw to it that pregnant women got parcels containing necessary products that they needed in this immensely trying and dangerous situation.
Furthermore, she cooperated with surgeons who operated women suffering from birth injuries in those countries where maternity welfare was very hard to get access to.
“Working with these surgeons really gave me a tremendous drive. They gave up their lives to help these women”, says Julia Wiklander.
She had been trying a long time to get the job at the UN, but after a while at the organisation she felt disappointed. Although she considers the UN an extremely important organisation, she discovered that the working process often ran very slowly.
“I want things to happen, and I had so much I wanted to say. This led me to work with Girls’ Globe full time”, says Julia Wiklander and continues:
“What makes Girls’ Globe stand out is the fact that it is a network where committed people and organisations are able to meet as well as a platform where they can find new ways to cooperate.”
At present, 13 women are writing for Girls’ Globe, and more are to join. The women come from India, Canada and Latin America, amongst others, and they all have unique experiences. Through their writing and networking, they wish to help contributing to various creative solutions to changing the world, and making it a better place for women and girls.
“These women have different ways of looking at issues considering women’s rights and they all write in their own style. I think it’s important that you write about what you personally find urgent. In addition, we get a stronger voice as we have different points of view”, says Julia Wiklander.
Together they run several projects to strengthen women’s organising. She’s talking about how this kind of organisations is in urgent need of resources.
“Every little organisation at grass root level out in the countryside make enormous a difference for the people living there. Our goal is to create a global network for them”, says Julia Wiklander.
They work hard for women’s health, maternity welfare and sexual and reproductive health, but at the end of the day it’s all about women’s rights. Due to discrimination, women and girls don’t have access to equivalent education or medical care. Furthermore, a large number of women are given no help when giving birth, but are expected to handle that on their own.
When asked if she is going to visit the different writers she answers in a, to her, natural way:
“No, I don’t want to just travel around on my own. I want to arrange things that can be useful to everyone, enabling more people to exchange experiences.”
According to her, many elders say that there has never been so much oppression against women as today. But on the other hand, it is possible that we haven’t paid that much attention to these issues before.
“Now is our chance to change the world”, says Julia Wiklander.
The same invitation is aimed towards the students attending her workshop: You can be a part of changing the situation for women all around the world. All you need is the will.
Translation: Anna Bergvall
Text: Nina Nord
Photo: Emma Karlsmark Elfstrand
