Yulya Brezina (Luniniec, Brest Oblast), Dasha Bolt (agrotown Navasiolki, Pastavy District) and Lena Ivanova (village of Baraŭliany, Minsk District) are the heroines of the UNFPA project "Ten-Year-Old Girls - the Generation of Sustainable Development Goals 2030".
Yulya represents the challenges that adolescent girls with disabilities face, Dasha is a teenage girl living in a rural area, Lena is a representative of the Romani community. All heroines attend school, they all have their dreams and are willing to work. When she grows up Yulya wants to help children with disabilities, Dasha wants to become an interpreter, and Lena wants to be a psychologist.
We remind, that the project is implemented by the UN Population Fund at the international and regional level. UNFPA Belarus is one of the country offices in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region participating in the project.
10-year-old teenage girls tell us about their dreams, future profession and speak about the world they want to live in.
Yulya Brezina (Luninec,Brest Oblast')
1) What's your first name?
My name is Julia Brezina.
2) Are you in school? In which grade?
I study at school № 1, 4th B grade at Luninets.
3) What's your favorite subject?
My favourite subject is mathematics.
4) When you are not at school, what do you normally do?
After classes I visit Children’s Arts Center, where I am creating different crafts. During vacations I play with my friends.
5) Do you have brothers and sisters? Are they older or younger than you? Do they go to school, work at home or have a job?
I have step sisters and brothers. Their names are Sveta, Oksana, Dima, Maksim…I have many sisters and brothers. They also go to school.
6) Do you want to be like them or do you want to do something else?
I want to do the same things I am doing now. I go to school, make crafts. My crafts are from beads, foamiran, different natural materials. I draw as well on semolina. I do it with pastel and gouache. I create different paintings.
7) Tell me about your friends. How old are they? Are they all girls?
I have many friends. Basically, they are from different cities. They are both girls and boys. Mostly I play with girls.
8) As you grow up, how long do you want to stay in school?
I would like to stay in school until 11th grade.
9) Do you want to get married one day? If so, at what age?
Unfortunately, I do not want to get married.
10) Do you want to have children one day? If so, how many?
Yes. Two girls.
11) Do you want to have a job? If so, what type of work would you like to do?
Yes, I would like to work in the future.
12) What is your biggest dream? For yourself and for the world around you?
My biggest dream in the future, when I will grow up, - maybe I would help children, who are like me. For myself I would like to walk again.
13) What do you want to do to make this dream happen?
To reach this dream I should work hard and set goals.
14) What else needs to happen for your dreams to come true?
I would like people to be more kind and helpful, like we are.
15) As a girl, do you think you will have more problems making your dreams come true compared to boys? Why?
To my mind, comparing a boy and a girl, both of them can reach their goals equally, because there are no differences between a girl and a boy.
Darya Bolt (Novoselki village, Postavy district, Vytebsk oblast)
1) What's your first name?
My name is Dasha.
2) Are you in school? In which grade?
I study at school in 5th grade. There are 2 pupils in my class. Two, because some teenagers live in regional town of Postavy. And it seems there are no more children of my age here in Novoselki to study with me.
3) What's your favorite subject?
My favourite subject is mathematics.
4) When you are not at school, what do you normally do?
After school I come home to clean my room, but usually I play with my dolls.
5) Do you have brothers and sisters? Are they older or younger than you? Do they go to school, work at home or have a job?
I have sisters and brothers. My sister’s name is Sasha. She is younger than me. She is seven years old and starts her 2nd grade.
6) Tell me about your friends. How old are they? Are they all girls?
I have three friends. All of them are girls.
7) As you grow up, how long do you want to stay in school?
I would stay in school until 11th grade, but if they close 10th and 11th grades, I will stay until 9th grade.
8) Do you want to get married one day? If so, at what age?
I would like to get married at 22.
9) Do you want to have children one day? If so, how many?
Yes. Two children.
10) Do you want to have a job? If so, what type of work would you like to do?
Yes, I would like to work in the future. I would like to become an interpreter, travel the world and translate from different languages.
11) What is your biggest dream? For yourself and for the world around you?
My dream is to travel to different countries. For the world I would like wars never and nowhere to happen.
12) What do you want to do to make this dream happen?
To become an interpreter I need to learn languages in order to understand and translate them. To stop wars people should learn to live in peace.
13) As a girl, do you think you will have more problems making your dreams come true compared to boys? Why?
I thinks, girls are more likely to become interpreters as they study better than boys.
Lena Ivanova (village of Baraŭliany, Minsk District)
1) What's your first name?
My name is Lena.
2) Are you in school? In which grade?
I study at new school in Borovlyani. I pass to 3rd grade.
3) What's your favorite subject?
My favourite subject is mathematics.
4) When you are not at school, what do you normally do?
After school I play with my younger brother, play with kids in the yard, bake together with mom or help her to clean the house.
5) Do you have brothers and sisters? Are they older or younger than you? Do they go to school, work at home or have a job?
I have sisters and brothers. Martin is 6 years old. Natali is 2. They live together. I live together with my younger brother Roma. He is seven years old. I also have brother Kolya, he is 13 and sister Ksiusha, she is seven years old. Kolya and Ksiusha live together in a flat in Minsk. Roma and I live here in Borovlyani.
6) Do you want to be like them or do you want to do something else?
My sister travelled to England and now she is in Krym. I also want to travel. My brother Kolya is a swimmer. He trains every day. He is so busy that can visit us only on Saturdays and Sundays. I like to dance, ice-skate and cook.
7) Tell me about your friends. How old are they? Are they all girls?
I have many friends. All of them are girls.
8) As you grow up, how long do you want to stay in school?
I would like to stay in school until 9th grade, and then, when time will come I will enter university to study psychology.
9) Do you want to get married one day? If so, at what age?
I did not think about it before. I think I want to get married, when I will be 19.
10) Do you want to have children one day? If so, how many?
Yes. A girl and a boy.
11) Do you want to have a job? If so, what type of work would you like to do?
When I grow up I would like to become a psychologist because I like to help people and give them wise advices.
12) What is your biggest dream? For yourself and for the world around you?
My dream is to build a house and to have my own room. Another dream is to help people. I do not know how I will do it, but I will try my best.
13) What do you want to do to make this dream happen?
I would like to study well at school and in the university, and maybe eventually I’ll become a good psychologist.
14) What else needs to happen for your dreams to come true?
If dreams of people all over the world come true, I’ll be happy and my dreams will come true as well.
15) As a girl, do you think you will have more problems making your dreams come true compared to boys? Why?
It is more difficult for girls than boys. Girls are very busy. They have lots of household chores to do. And boys have few of them. That is why I think boys will do better than girls.
