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STORY: UN / WOMEN AND GIRLS IN SCIENCE
TRT: 5:12
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 11 FEBRUARY 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
11 FEBRUARY 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Various shots, General Assembly Hall
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Amanda Nguyen, Astronaut:
“Gender-based violence continues to be a barrier for women in STEM. A 2018 National Academies of Science report found that over half of women, faculty, staff and students have experienced sexual harassment. The future of innovation depends on breaking these barriers, and the truth is for the estimated 35 percent of women on earth who are survivors of sexual violence, access to justice is a necessary prerequisite to true peace. This is a peace that we all - world leader, Ambassador, advocate from every corner of the globe - can help deliver. We can hold up a light to this darkest corner of human experience and allow survivors, at last, to be seen, to be heard, to be believed and to be empowered.”
4. Various shots, General Assembly Hall
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Amanda Nguyen, Astronaut:
“To the 1.3 billion survivors, we can heal, survive and thrive, and if the law is unjust, we can rewrite it. We can honor the person we were before we were hurt, her dreams still matter, and no matter how outrageous they are, like flying to space, they can still come true.”
6. Various shots, General Assembly Hall
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Koye Adeboye, Head of Communications at the Spotlight Initiative:
“Today's event is a timely reminder that despite the increasing global pushback and a reversion to regressive policies on gender equality, progress for women and girls is here to stay.”
8. Various shots, General Assembly Hall
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Koye Adeboye, Head of Communications at the Spotlight Initiative:
“Let us all join hands to ensure that every woman and girl has the opportunity to achieve her dreams here on this Earth or in space or in anywhere in our universe.”
10. Various shots, General Assembly Hall
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Cady Coleman, Former Astronaut:
“When we were on space crew, we look around, and the only people that are going to help us solve a problem are the people right next to us. Well, here on Earth, our earth is a spaceship, and when you look to your left and you look to your right, those people are on your crew, people outside these doors, people you haven't met yet these are all the crew, because all of us are the crew of spaceship Earth.”
12. Various shots, General Assembly Hall
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Jeanette Epps, Astronaut:
“To the generation of women currently in the sciences, I say to you that we have a personal mandate to create opportunities for access to education, to mentorship and to provide the encouragement necessary for these young women to launch their dreams. We need to lift each other up at every turn.”
14. Various shots, General Assembly Hall
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Sian Proctor, Astronaut :
“We have J for justice to ignite the bold. We have E for equity to cut past the old. We have D for diversity to end the fight. We have I for inclusion to try to make it right. A Jedi space to rally behind, a universal force so big it binds. Inspiration to change the world, a new beginning for us to hold. It's not about you, it's not about me. It's about space to inspire for all of humanity.”
16. Wide shot, General Assembly
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Bill Nye, Science Educator:
“So today we celebrate the women working in science, technology, engineering and math, providing scientific curiosity, technical expertise and especially passion. You all will make the world better for all humankind, you are leading us. And thank you, thank you astronauts working together, we can, and we shall, dare I say it, change the world!”
18. Various shots, astronaut ceremony
On the Day of Women and Girls in Science, the United Nations saw a first historic gathering of astronaut women and an event raising awareness for gender-based violence in STEAM.
Soon to be the first Vietnamese woman to go to space, activist and astronaut Amanda Nguyen shared her story as a survivor of sexual assault, and reiterating that gender-based violence continues to be a barrier for women in STEM.
A 2018 National Academies of Science report found that over half of women, faculty, staff and students have experienced sexual harassment, she said.
Nguyen highlighted, “The future of innovation depends on breaking these barriers, and the truth is for the estimated 35 percent of women on earth who are survivors of sexual violence, access to justice is a necessary prerequisite to true peace.”
“This is a peace that we all - world leader, Ambassador, advocate from every corner of the globe - can help deliver. We can hold up a light to this darkest corner of human experience and allow survivors, at last, to be seen, to be heard, to be believed and to be empowered.”
Nguyen said, “To the 1.3 billion survivors, we can heal, survive and thrive, and if the law is unjust, we can rewrite it. We can honor the person we were before we were hurt, her dreams still matter, and no matter how outrageous they are, like flying to space, they can still come true.”
Koye Adeboye, Head of Communications at the UN Spotlight Initiative said, “Today's event is a timely reminder that despite the increasing global pushback and a reversion to regressive policies on gender equality, progress for women and girls is here to stay.”
Adeboye said, “Let us all join hands to ensure that every woman and girl has the opportunity to achieve her dreams here on this Earth or in space or in anywhere in our universe.”
Former NASA Astronaut Cady Coleman also spoke at the event.
She said, “here on Earth, our earth is a spaceship, and when you look to your left and you look to your right, those people are on your crew, people outside these doors, people you haven't met yet these are all the crew, because all of us are the crew of spaceship Earth.”
Astronaut Jeanette Epps recalled her path to become an astronaut, she said, “To the generation of women currently in the sciences, I say to you that we have a personal mandate to create opportunities for access to education, to mentorship and to provide the encouragement necessary for these young women to launch their dreams.”
“We need to lift each other up at every turn,” she said.
Sian Proctor made history as the first African-American woman to pilot a spacecraft on SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission.
She shared her poem with the participants in the August Hall.
She said, “We have J for justice to ignite the bold. We have E for equity to cut past the old. We have D for diversity to end the fight. We have I for inclusion to try to make it right. A Jedi space to rally behind, a universal force so big it binds. Inspiration to change the world, a new beginning for us to hold.”
“It's not about you, it's not about me. It's about space to inspire for all of humanity,” the poem ended.
For his part, Science Educator Bill Nye said, “So today we celebrate the women working in science, technology, engineering and math, providing scientific curiosity, technical expertise and especially passion.”
“You all will make the world better for all humankind, you are leading us. And thank you, thank you astronauts working together, we can, and we shall, dare I say it, change the world!”
The event was hosted by Rise, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Poland to the United Nations, and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Spotlight Initiative.
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