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meet the women we work with
Nemone
Nemone, 17, dropped out of school at 15 and lost direction in her life. Platform 51 is helping her find her way again. She’s finding it a great outlet for her strong opinions.
“A lot of things went wrong in my life. I dropped out of school. I found it difficult to cope. I was trying to be a rebel and everything was going wrong. Me and my mum would wind each other up quite a lot, and I wanted to move out and be with my Dad, it’s all I could focus on. So I just packed up and left one day. I was 15.
“My step-mum helped me get a bit of work and get my own flat but I didn’t keep it very well. I’d get lonely and have parties… in the end I got evicted. That happened at the same time as I found I out I was pregnant. I was in a panic, desperate really. So I had to call up my mum and go back to hers. The plan was to sort everything out but I lost the baby. Back at mum’s, we try to give each other a wide berth.
“I’m quite new to Platform 51, but I’ve always known about this place cos when I was a little girl I came here with my mum. I was in the crèche. So when someone suggested that I come to Platform 51, I thought ‘yeah’ and it’s going really well. I’m doing courses, I’ve met some great new friends and done all kinds of things already. My ambition here is to actually complete something and come out with some kind of qualification.
“Platform 51 is definitely making a difference to me, I’ve got a CV now and I’m trying to find some work and sort things out that way. But there’s not much work out there. In the meantime, I’m doing a peer mentor course. And I’ve took part in a campaign to try to get more inspirational female figures across; how women do amazing things but we never see them … the way to equality is by seeing stronger inspiration women in the media and on the telly. The few women we see are newsreaders… or maybe they’re models: bright orange and blonde and slung across a male in a photograph. It’s not very inspiring. It’s just wrong. I think those women are sick to be doing that.
“I think the leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas – now she’s an MP - is really inspiring. She’s so strong and actually doing something. It’s fabulous. We need more women in politics; more women in charge of big industries. We’ve got to do something about it!
“So many girls that you speak to ‘what do you wanna be?’ oh yeah ‘glamour model’. What?! I want to slap them! Why would you do that to yourself? And you’re making all women look bad by doing it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude. But women are not just pieces of meat and it downgrades all women. If you look back, at one time, women were mothers and housewives. They had status and respect as that. We have no status now because now we’re not respected.
“…yeah, I think women are more objectified than ever. Young men now expect they’re going to get sex within the first couple of days of a relationship, they expect their girls are going to be like they’ve seen on the internet and in the movies but I don’t think that’s right. The more we accept that it’s OK, the more girls are going feel they’re not good enough; we’ll get more girls feeling bad about themselves, getting anorexic, self-harming because they’re not this amazing, gorgeous, big-breasted, sex object.”
Find out how your support can help young women like Nemone here.
