US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse makes a visit to Plan USA

US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse accepted an invitation to visit Plan USA’s Warwick, Rhode Island office on Monday, August 30, bringing full circle the hard work of the Plan-sponsored youth group Youth United for Global Action and Awareness (YUGA).

YUGA members had been writing letters to the Senator from Rhode Island in support of the Child Marriage Act, which Whitehouse had co-sponsored. The Act requires a higher degree of accountability by countries that continue to have a high occurrence of child marriages. According to UNICEF, in five countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and in Bangladesh, more than 60 percent of women were married before the age of 18.

A lesson in advocacy 

Plan USA’s Interim President/CEO Audrey Bracey Deegan and board member Walter Stone welcomed the Senator to Plan USA. After meeting briefly with several members of Plan USA’s senior leaders, Senator Whitehouse sat down with three YUGA members: Rachel, Luis, and Angelina. All three are active in a YUGA chapter at Cranston East High School (RI).

Earlier this summer, YUGA members gathered from around the country and from abroad for their annual camp to discuss matters important to the youth of the world. The Child Marriage Act was one of their top priorities. Camp attendees wrote letters to their home-state senators, including Whitehouse, as well as extending an invitation for the Senator to visit them at camp. And though the timing of camp didn’t coincide with an opening in the Senator’s schedule then, Whitehouse took advantage of a short summer recess to come into Plan USA’s office and acknowledge the efforts of the determined group on Monday.

Whitehouse took a few minutes to explain how he first became involved as a co-sponsor of the Child Marriage Act, telling the group that he was first approached by Senator Dick Durbin (D. Ill.) when the two were on the Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Judiciary Committee. He said becoming a co-sponsor was a “no-brainer,” explaining that “when a 40-year-old man wants to marry a 13-year-old girl, there is not a lot of decision making going on, on her part.”

Rachel, herself 13, asked the Senator what they, as youth, could do to help get the bill passed. Whitehouse then gave the group a hands-on lesson in advocacy. “One of the important elements of advocacy is to know where to focus it,” he said and, that “usually it involves finding a way to make appeals to individual senators.” He also encouraged YUGA members to continue recruiting their peers to “get interested in the issue, to call, write, and send posters... that makes a big difference.”

New voices in a new world

In her introductory remarks to an all staff assembly, Bracey Deegan spoke of the Senators unique perspective the result of extensive travels growing up as the son of a Foreign Affairs officer. “Senator Whitehouse has seen firsthand the suffering caused by poverty, conflict, and corruption.”

Whitehouse shared that as economic trauma spreads around the world and the discrepancy between the wealthy and the poor grows, “it makes a very strong and fertile base to grow envy, anger, resentment, violence, and extremism.” Whitehouse added that it’s up to us as a society to “change the way we work with the developing world so that they see a different face... Your role in making that happen is very important. The passion that you bring to it, the new ideas and technology is very critical and I want to say thank you for what you are doing.”

Kate Ezzes, Plan USA’s Youth Engagement and Action Manager said the Senator’s visit was instrumental in showing the YUGA members that their voices are being heard and their work is making a difference.

Before leaving, Senator Whitehouse stopped to trace his hand on construction paper, as part of an effort to collect 2015 hands to symbolize the year 2015, the target date to reach the Millennium Development Goals. In it he wrote his reason why youth voices should be heard, “Because we need new voices in a new world.”

See more pictures of Senator Whitehouse's visit to Plan USA

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