Written by
Derin Arat '26
April 22, 2024

Fresh out of their UNWomen internships, two Princeton Students, Emma Coley '20 and Ananya Augustin Malhotra '20 had a strong desire to bring their learnings back to campus. In September 2019, the Faith and Gender Justice Fellowship was born, creating a community that revolved around gender justice on an international level while sharing and learning about each other's faith commitments as women. Over the past five years, The Office of Religious Life has helped the fellowship grow and created a strong bond with UNWomen.

As the Gender and Faith Justice Fellowship at Princeton, we had the privilege of attending the 68th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York. Throughout the week, we actively participated in a series of events addressing various issues relating to gender equality and poverty eradication in all parts of the world.

During the initial part of the week, we attended side events on topics such as women’s roles in the care economy, promoting parity democracy, and addressing the status of women in conflict zones. This experience allowed us to reflect on different policy approaches implemented by various states to enhance the integration of women in social and economic life. We gained insight into the perspectives of different delegations on policy implementation, enabling us to conduct comparative analyses of the effectiveness of various approaches.

As a fellowship focused on gender and faith justice, our diverse personal contemplative and cultural backgrounds sparked meaningful conversations within our team. Each day, we discussed how our unique cultural and religious perspectives influenced our evaluation of different policy solutions proposed by the delegations and their manner of implementation. As a group comprising individuals from vastly different backgrounds, we took the opportunity to learn about each other's life experiences before coming to Princeton, our experiences after becoming a part of the Princeton community, and what it means to us. This process of understanding one another fostered a sense of empowerment and facilitated respectful dialogues on faith and gender-related experiences. For instance, one of our fellows, Lina Lyssia Abtouche, shared her experiences as a panelist in the Youth Forum, highlighting how her identity as a young indigenous Imazighen woman shaped her views on gender equality. She emphasized the importance of inclusive conversations that incorporate indigenous perspectives.

Later in the week, we participated in the Youth Forum, where we had the opportunity to connect with other young delegates from various NGOs and youth delegations worldwide. This platform facilitated rich discussions and exchanges of ideas regarding gender equality and women’s empowerment. Additionally, we had the opportunity to moderate small group discussions during the Youth Forum. One significant theme that emerged from our discussions was the imperative of centralizing youth participation in decision-making spaces, particularly amplifying young voices from marginalized communities and the Global South. We emphasized the importance of safeguarding the freedom of expression rights of the youth, recognizing their unique perspectives and youthful optimism and hope as strengths in advancing gender equality.

Overall, the experience was incredibly inspiring and we hope to carry what we’ve learned during the experience into our work here at Princeton.