Amherst Central High School celebrated International Women's Day with sessions designed to raise awareness about women's issues. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley talked to some students honoring women from across the globe.
“My name is Erina Uddin. Hi, my name is Mohsin Muzaffari. My name is Payge Vukelic. I’m Sophie Glodzik,” the Amherst students stated.
This was the first-ever International Women's Day at Amherst High. Students attended various 'learn-in/tech-in' session designed to raise awareness of women's issues. The theme of the event was "Be informed. Be inspired".
“So a lot of women get like swept up in history and you don’t really hear about them as much. They’re really not talked about and we don’t have time to learn about them.” said Sophie Glodzik, junior.
“Right now, there’s still a long way to go for women’s rights, but in the future there will be – instead of International Women’s Day – there will be International Everyone’s Day,” noted Erina Uddin, junior.
“Now, of course – society has changed since the first century – we are more balanced than ever and we’re trying to bring more changes in this community, especially in Amherst – fantastic,” remarked Mohsin Muzaffari, senior.
“We forget the challenge women went through and we forget to appreciate what we have now and see how different it is from older generations,” stated Payge Vukelic, junior.
The high school teamed with University at Buffalo’s Graduate School of Education to create the event. Qinghua Chen is from China, now studying at UB. She’s a former journalist her country and helped organize the high school event.
“In China, we say, you know, females are holding up half of the sky,” Chen replied.
Students focused on topics such as media, STEM/health and politics.