My name is Anika Sikka, and I am one of the founders of Empolitics. I wanted to share my story as a minority interested in politics. For me, I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to explore my passions, and I wanted to share how different perspectives and groups are essential in governments.
In 2018, I was invited to represent the United States at the annual United Nations COP24 Climate Change conference. Here, I got to work with passionate youth from all across the globe. We were all so different, as we came from very different backgrounds, but we all united over one issue, the lack of policies regarding climate action. For two weeks, we tirelessly worked and by the end, we produced a whitepaper, which was then presented at several global conferences. Not only did I make meaningful relationships throughout this experience, I experienced the beauty of a diverse group of people working together to solve an issue.
As I mentioned before, we had representatives from over 40 countries, along with writing and blog posts from thousands of people from every part of the world. When drafting solutions, we had to think about everyone’s needs and perspectives, not just our own. We were also able to share ideas about what was working in our communities. This led to our solutions benefiting everyone, and the implementation of ideas that worked in other nations. Working alongside these amazing passionate students, I grasped the true importance of representation in political positions.
This idea can also apply to women in politics. Just how every person on the team was able to bring a new perspective to the white paper, women in political positions would bring a different perspective to discussions. If we have an equal distribution of women and men in politics, the solutions and policies drafted will address the needs of the whole population, not only the men.
It will be tough to get everyone’s voices heard, but it is worth it, as true unity is reached through diversity.
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