Silence into Advocacy

There were nights when the glow of my laptop felt like the only witness to my silence.

The admission portal blinked back at me, year after year, rejection after rejection.

7 years of waiting felt like 7years of vanishing. Friends moved forward.

I stayed behind, trapped in questions that had no answers.

In my culture, girls are told to endure quietly. So I did. I swallowed my fears, my anger, my pain.

I smiled when people asked, “Why are you not in school yet?” I pretended I wasn’t breaking when classmates became graduates and I remained a girl still waiting.

Silence, I would learn, can become its own form of violence.

Those 7 years were not just empty spaces on a calendar. They were years of working odd jobs to survive, of learning skills that were never part of my original dream.

I signed up for internships, offered myself as a volunteer wherever I could, and even learnt how to bake to keep hope alive.

But the hardest part was the loneliness. Silence sat heavy on my chest.

Injustice wasn’t only in the admission system that failed me, it was also in the way society silences women and girls, teaching us to shrink instead of speak.

Somewhere along the way, I realised that silence was eating me alive.

Staying quiet was safer, yes, but it was also suffocating.

I began to see that injustice doesn’t only thrive in violent outbursts.

It thrives in the unspoken, in the ignored, in the shamed.

I picked up myself and whispered prayers into the night, asking God for strength.

Slowly, I began to understand that if I remained silent, I became part of the very injustice I despised.

If I spoke, maybe another girl waiting in the shadows would know she was not alone.

So I began to speak.

First through writing, then through volunteering, then through advocacy.

My voice shook at first, but it was still mine. The same girl who once hid behind silence now shares stories, raises awareness, and advocates for women and girls.

Baking taught me patience. Internships taught me resilience.

Volunteering taught me the power of service. And silence, silence taught me why my voice matters.

Today, I raise my voice not because I have forgotten the pain, but because I carry it as purpose.

I speak for the girl waiting years for an opportunity.

I speak for the woman silenced by culture. I speak for those who believe their pain has no echo.

Silence once defined me, but today, my voice is my advocacy.