Every Girl Deserves a Future That Feels Like Her Own

I’ve signed Wild Wellness with Sarah up to a monthly donation through Plan International Australia’s Change for Girls program, and I want to share why this felt so close to my heart.

There is something vulnerable about explaining a decision like this. I want to speak honestly about what moved me, while remembering that the girls at the centre of this cause have their own stories to tell. My part is to listen, learn and contribute.

As I build Wild Wellness, I keep returning to the question of what I want this business to mean in practice. Care is a word I use often. I want it to be visible in the decisions I make, including decisions that happen quietly behind the scenes.

Supporting this cause felt like a way to put that care into action.

Every girl deserves safety, education and choice

When I think about wellbeing, I think about being able to feel safe in your own life. Having someone listen when something is wrong. Understanding your body. Being able to learn, ask questions and make decisions about your future.

I believe those things belong to every girl.

And it hurts to sit with the fact that so many girls are growing up without them.

The issues behind this cause are substantial. UNICEF identifies poverty, child marriage and gender-based violence among the barriers that can prevent girls from getting an education. Unsafe schools and inadequate hygiene and sanitation can create further obstacles. Those barriers differ between communities, but their consequences reach into a girl’s everyday life and future opportunities. Learn more from UNICEF about girls’ education.

I find myself thinking about the ordinary things a childhood should have room for: friendships, learning something new, changing your mind about what you want to become. The freedom to be unsure. The time to grow into yourself without having your future decided for you.

A girl should be able to have ambitions that belong to her. She should also be allowed an ordinary, joyful childhood without having to be exceptional to deserve it.

There is something deeply confronting about recognising how much can depend on circumstances a child never chose. Where she is born. The resources available to her family. Whether her community has a safe school she can attend. Whether the adults and institutions around her protect her rights.

None of those circumstances makes her less deserving of a full life.

Why this is personal

As a woman, that is where this becomes deeply personal for me.

I have been able to study, qualify as a naturopath and begin building a business around work that matters to me. My education has given me knowledge I use every day, and it has also given me choices. I can keep learning. I can consider different directions. I can imagine what I would like Wild Wellness to become and take steps towards it.

I feel grateful for that freedom. I also feel a responsibility to notice it.

Acknowledging the opportunities I have had doesn’t require me to pretend that life is always easy. It asks me to recognise that being able to pursue a meaningful path is something every girl should have the chance to do.

I find it painful to imagine having curiosity and ambition, then being told that education is no longer available to you. To want to understand the world while your own world is becoming smaller. To have questions about your body or your future and no safe place to ask them.

I cannot claim to know how that feels. I can recognise that it matters, and let that recognition influence what I do.

Time to grow into herself

Child marriage is one part of this issue that I find especially difficult to sit with. UNICEF explains that girls who marry before eighteen are less likely to remain in school and more likely to experience domestic violence. Marriage in childhood can also isolate girls from friends and family. Poverty, limited educational opportunities and entrenched gender inequality help sustain the practice. Learn more from UNICEF about child marriage.

Reading about those realities brings me back to how young a child still is. How much growing, discovering and learning should still be ahead of her.

A girl deserves time to discover what she wants. She deserves relationships in which her wishes matter, and a future in which her consent matters. She deserves support that protects the choices still ahead of her.

I want to approach these issues with care, including care in how I speak about families and communities. Understanding the pressures that surround harmful practices matters. So does listening to the people working to change them. I want my contribution to support that work with humility.

Wellbeing begins with its foundations

Through Wild Wellness, I speak often about slowing down, listening to ourselves and making space for care. Those things are meaningful to me. A quiet ritual can be a way of paying attention to a life that has become hurried or overwhelming.

But the more I think about wellbeing, the more I return to its foundations.

What does it mean to encourage someone to listen to her body if her choices about that body are restricted? What does it mean to speak about rest when safety is uncertain?

How do we talk about a woman’s potential while overlooking whether she was given the chance to learn as a girl?

These questions make me look more carefully at the values behind my work.

For me, a commitment to women’s wellbeing includes caring about the conditions girls grow up in. It includes the right to education, protection and dignity. It includes being taken seriously before you have the words, confidence or independence to advocate for yourself.

That is why this cause belongs within the heart of Wild Wellness.

I want the warmth people feel in this business to be supported by real decisions. The way I listen. The care I put into my work. The causes I make room for. The willingness to look beyond what is immediately in front of me.

There is tenderness in building something that carries your name. You are deciding, little by little, what you are prepared to stand behind. This is one of those decisions for me.

Why Change for Girls

Plan International Australia describes Change for Girls as its regular-giving program, supporting work that responds to immediate needs and tackles barriers to gender equality. Donations can contribute to education, essential health services, support for families and safe spaces where girls can learn about their rights and develop life skills.

What drew me to that work was the possibility of contributing to support that reaches into everyday life, while also addressing the conditions that limit girls’ choices.

I care about a girl having support when she needs it now. I care just as much about the opportunities available to her as she grows.

I also want to remember that girls have their own ideas about what needs to change. Their voices deserve an audience. Their knowledge of their own lives deserves respect. Supporting a cause like this should involve listening to those voices and making room for girls to shape the decisions that affect them.

That feels essential to the kind of care I believe in.

A quiet, ongoing commitment

Choosing a regular donation gives this intention a place in the ongoing life of my business. It is a commitment I can keep returning to as Wild Wellness grows, alongside the daily work of building something thoughtful and sustainable.

There is something grounding about making a decision that continues beyond the moment you feel moved.

The scale of these issues can make any individual contribution feel small. I don’t want to exaggerate what my donation can achieve, or claim a specific outcome I cannot verify. My contribution becomes part of a much wider effort.

Even with that uncertainty, I believe it is worth making.

I don’t need to have a perfect answer to every question before I begin. I can take a considered step, keep learning about the work I am supporting and stay open to understanding more.

Perhaps that is part of why I felt so called to do this: I want compassion to have somewhere practical to go.

I want to be able to feel sadness about injustice without becoming stuck in it. I want the discomfort of recognising unequal opportunities to lead to something useful. Giving regularly is one way I can respond.

A future that feels like her own

There is hope in this decision too.

UNICEF describes girls’ education as a force that can improve future earnings, participation in decisions and opportunities for families and communities. Those wider benefits matter.

For me, a girl’s right to learn also stands on its own. Her education matters because her life matters. She deserves opportunity whether she goes on to lead a community, build a business, care for a family, pursue an unexpected passion or choose a quiet life that brings her happiness.

She should have room to decide.

That is the future I want to support: one where a girl can explore who she is without her possibilities being narrowed by inequality. Where she is listened to, protected and able to participate in decisions about her life.

Sharing this feels personal because it says something about the business I hope to build over time. I want Wild Wellness to remain thoughtful as it grows. I want care to reach beyond the words on a website and become part of how the business operates.

This monthly donation is one concrete step in that direction.

Thank you for being here as Wild Wellness grows, and for taking the time to understand something that matters to me.

My hope is that the care I put into this business can keep reaching a little further. Towards a girl whose ideas deserve to be heard. Towards the education she wants to continue. Towards the safety and freedom she deserves as she grows.

Towards a future that feels like her own.

With love,
Sarah
Founder, Wild Wellness with Sarah