By Ghina
Ghina took part in the Girls Gearing Up Summer Leadership Academy in 2023, later chaired the GGU Youth Advisory Board and joined the ABURY Foundation as an intern in 2026. She is now studying photography. The photos in this article are her own.
On July 10, 2026, I stood at the entrance of BBIS with a camera around my neck, watching participants arrive for the ABURY Girls Gearing Up Academy. Three years earlier, I had arrived at the same Academy as one of them: sixteen, nervous, and traveling alone for the very first time.
This is what happened in between.
Berlin, alone, at 16
In the summer of 2023, I received a scholarship to attend the Girls Gearing Up Summer Leadership Academy in Berlin. It was my first international opportunity ever.
At the time, I was a perfectionist and a worrier, someone who doubted herself even when she was doing well. Traveling without my family felt like a distant dream. Then the day came when I had to pack my things, say goodbye, and head to the airport.
On the way to Berlin, my mind was full of questions. I come from a region of the world that is often misunderstood and reduced to stereotypes, and I worried that I wouldn’t be understood or accepted. Would I feel as welcome as the girls from other countries?
What I found was the opposite. From the moment I was picked up at the airport, I felt welcomed. Being surrounded by girls from so many different backgrounds showed me that despite our differences, we could come together, learn from one another, and work toward the things we dreamed about.
The week that stayed with me
At 16, I was suddenly part of a program that talked not only about careers, but also about girlhood, womanhood, and the challenges young women face.
One moment I will never forget: during the week, a musician came to perform for us, and before long I was sitting beside her with a guitar in my hands, playing along. Some girls were dancing around us, others sat watching and clapping. It was one of the very first times I had dared to play in front of anyone other than my music teacher, and I even got to help write that year’s GGU song. I remember how liberating it felt, like a warm hug and the truest definition of girlhood. I cried happy tears afterwards.
We laughed, sang, danced, and talked about serious things late into the evening. By the end of the week, saying goodbye was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
But the most important thing I took home was a different view of myself. The people at GGU believed in me in ways I had struggled to believe in myself. I decided to look for opportunities beyond school to keep building the skills the Academy had introduced me to: critical thinking, financial literacy, sustainability, and teamwork.
Giving something back
Later that year, applications opened for the 2024 Youth Advisory Board. I wanted to give something back to the community that had helped change my mindset. I joined the Board as Social Media Manager in 2024 and became Chair in 2025.
What had started as one week in Berlin had become part of my everyday life.
A gap year and a camera
In the summer of 2025, I graduated from high school and felt quite lost. I knew I wanted to take a gap year, but I didn’t want to spend it at home without growing or contributing to something.
So I started looking for volunteering opportunities abroad, and the familiar anxiety came back. Then I reminded myself: if I flew to Germany alone at 16 for GGU, I could definitely do this at 18.
Two days after graduating, I flew to Liddes, a small town in Valais, Switzerland, and spent around two months volunteering at an international children’s language camp. Week by week, I watched shy children start to speak more freely. It reminded me how much an environment can change a person.
In my free time, I took photographs. Photography had become the way I could express myself most freely, and people around me started asking whether I had ever thought about doing it professionally.
That question stayed with me. My first instinct was to write to the GGU team and ask whether I could join the 2026 Academy as a photographer and part of the social media team. They said yes almost immediately.
Finding ABURY
Back home, I still didn’t know what my next step would be, only that I wanted my work to mean something. I had admired the ABURY Foundation for a while, and the more I read about its projects, the more I connected with them. So I sent an email asking whether I could volunteer or work with them. I had no expectations.
About two weeks later, a reply arrived. The foundation was looking for a new intern, and they thought it could be me. In February 2026, I started.
I was nervous during my first month, but my ideas were taken seriously and I felt part of the team from the start. For someone just beginning her career, that made an enormous difference. And every time a message came in from a girl asking how to apply for a program, I knew our work was reaching the people it was meant for.
Same Academy, other side of the camera
The most exciting part of my internship was preparing the 2026 ABURY Girls Gearing Up Academy. It felt surreal to help build the program that had shaped me three years earlier. I worked on content ideas, communicated with participants, helped them prepare for the trip, and contributed to the schedule.
Then July 10 arrived, and I experienced the Academy all over again, this time as part of the team.
Within hours, the participants were already supporting and cheering each other on. They came from different countries and backgrounds, and for one week they shared their cultures, music, stories, and a lot of laughter.
The moment I remember most is taking the group photo at the Mega Mentoring Afternoon: 52 girls, more than 50 mentors and supporters, and around 25 team members, all in one frame. After so much hard work and endless planning, being able to capture how much the ABURY GGU community has grown felt almost unbelievable. It made me emotional, too, because three years earlier I had stood in that exact same spot, sharing my own moments with mentors.
It was funny, and a little nerve-racking, to work alongside some of the same people who had been responsible for me in 2023. What meant the most was their trust. Even when I felt unsure, there was always someone to turn to, and I never had to figure things out alone.
At the end of the week, participants told me how much they loved the photos and how glad they were to have those memories. It reminded me why I love photography: a good picture is something you can keep long after the moment is gone.
What comes next
In August, I finished my time at ABURY to begin a bachelor’s degree in photography. I don’t think I would have had the confidence to move abroad for it without the encouragement of the ABURY team, or without what GGU started in me three years earlier: the belief that I should go after the things I want, even when they seem out of reach.
When I think of the girl who nervously boarded a plane to Berlin at 16, I see how much has changed. She doubted herself. She wasn’t sure she belonged.
Since then, she has traveled on her own, volunteered abroad, worked with organizations she believes in, found her passion, and returned to the Academy where it all began. This time with a camera in her hand.
