The social determinants of health that act as barriers to the underprivileged need to be broken down by my generation in order to achieve health justice.

Meredith is a member of the International Youth Leadership Council.

Martin Luther King Jr. said that “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” This inspired me to take an active role in reproductive justice and the implementation of international improvements of sexual health for young people.

My interest in reproductive health was sparked again as a freshman at the George Washington University in the Women’s Leadership Program’s Globalization, Economics, and Business cohort. We viewed documentaries that displayed the injustices towards women and how education and micro lending can empower them to lift themselves up out of poverty. This encouraged me to use my knowledge as a public health student to remove the international sexual prejudices at a policy level through awareness. I am honored to join this fight to enable people around the world to have sexual freedom and education.

Although I have never been to a developing country, I have seen first hand how marginalized populations in the United States have been denied access to care and the right to live. The social determinants of health that act as barriers to the underprivileged need to be broken down by my generation in order to progressively move forward for health justice. I may be advocating on the behalf of populations I have only read about, but I hope to one day be a global health policy expert and travel to the homelands of the youth that I fight with to pursue equality in reproductive and sexual health rights.