ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2022
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. Over 31,000 young leaders on 2,400+ campuses across 140+ nations applied to join the Class of 2022. 200+ campuses worldwide (just 8%) were selected to host the 3,000+ Millennium Fellows.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT ANTRA SHARMA, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2022.
University of Delhi South Campus | Delhi, India | Advancing SDG 4 & UNAI 5
" Being a part of the Millennium Fellowship will enhance my creativity and drive up my dedication to work to create an impact. I'm excited to develop my skills and be able to align my interest with the principles of UNAI and the SDGs to bring about a change in the society, regardless big or small. This Fellowship will help in the possibility of a development and help me envision creative ways for a social impact. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Project STRIMAY
As an individual who has spent her entire life domestically, seeing women sharing and literally marrying themselves into isolated domestic spheres, it was not an easy task to tap on the nuances. While establishing the goal of our project to make the women acknowledge and empower their self and true identities, we corroborated upon plethora of resources, primary and secondary data of women, social media videos, anonymous posts to tap into the lives of people, especially women who have been a survivor of domestic violence. Domestic violence in itself being an umbrella form of discrimination, ranging from physical,verbal, sexual, monetary, emotional, psychological, it was an extremely sensitive and tough spot to touch. While reading through testimonies we realised how subtle violence as a form of survival could look like, from merely Oppressing women to cook a desired form of food of choice of the male head to "allowing" Going out in the dark. The consequences to little inconveniences cannot be traced over a piece over paper but conditioning them into inferior beings as compared to their male counterparts. The research further helped us gain knowledge about how women, who are the victims in these cases usually succumb to keeping their mouths shut regardless of intense and extreme acts of violence. When digging deeper for reasons, one apparent concern that was highlighted was family. With social conditioning as to how family is the greatest possession a woman owns, any crack or break into the institution would lead to a lifelong scar on the woman's mind and heart. Thus to keep the family United and harmonious on the face, the woman usually decided to bear the mental and physical torture.
I have also realized as an individual that people often ignore topics which are important, simply because they are pushed under the carpet of ignorance, as the term “taboo”. This prevents the women to get access to equal opportunities, equal spaces and equal rights. In terms of gender equality, it is also important that we focus on things which are often ignored including menstruation for women as well as period poverty for the community in general. A simple example of this can be when menstruators buy pads and how they are often wrapped in newspaper to avoid them from being “seen” as if menstruation is not something to be talked about! It is important that we take into account the problem of lack of resources, lack of awareness and lack of education for many individuals in the underprivileged sections of society. Thus, our project also extends to providing for those communities and creating awareness about important taboo topics so that we are able to break the ice and create a better society.
Further some important skills like Financial literacy are often ignored by the usual school curriculum which leads to students to make bad financial decisions in their education journey and afterwards as well. This can be seen by how a number of students have student loan burden or don't know where to invest money or how. There is an issue of financial inclusion as well here. Many women are left out from making money related decisions in the family as mostly men take the charge for money related matters. This leads to women having very low confidence in making financial decisions even if they are well-educated or working. Our project further extends to help students and women realize the importance of financial literacy and through the organization called FinSolers developed by Antra, our project has incorporated financial skills development as well through helpful articles and other resources shared to the audience.
About the Millennium Fellow
Antra Sharma is currently an Economics students at the University of Delhi. She was born in Meerut, India and has a keen interest in reading and writing books. She is also a published author and a poet. She is also very passionate about women's right and this Fellowship is a great opportunity to connect with women worldwide and drive her dedication to bring a change in the society. She has been a part of many clubs, societies and NGOs to help girls emerge as leaders in the future. Antra aspires to be a professional in the field of business and continue to contribute to the society and in the development of UN's Sustainable goals through her profession as well.