These Teen Girls Started A Body Positivity Campaign Every Generation Needs To See
"There is no one way to look beautiful; no one color, shape, or style represents beauty." - #IAmMyBeautiful
Gabriela Nadeau and Laney Blair are high school students looking to revolutionize perspectives on beauty and how people view themselves by sharing photos of the people in their community across social media.
Their campaign, #IAmMyBeautiful, pushes the message that beauty is not represented by any one look and is inside every individual.
The campaign was created by and is run solely by high school girls in an effort to not only help them view themselves positively, but also to foster confidence.
The campaign was created within a school club Gabriela and Laney participate in under the Girl Up Movement created by the United Nations Foundation that empowers girls to be leaders in their communities and around the world. Both Girl Up and the #IAmMyBeautiful campaign target adolescent girls in order to build their confidence and help them find their voice. Adolescence is often the hardest time for women to develop confidence and fight to be heard. #IAmMyBeautiful wishes to present all kinds of women and show the power inside of each and every one.
#IAmMyBeautiful is intended to make everyone feel good in their bodies, particularly young women struggling to love themselves during what can be the most difficult stage of development.
While #IAmMyBeautiful currently focuses mostly on youth, they aspire to photograph and share the stories of many more beautiful people and have exciting plans for Summer 2017. Anybody can participate in the campaign by tagging their posts with #IAmMyBeautiful no matter what your gender, race, or any other factor.
Spreading the love and positivity, #IAmMyBeautiful also held a booth at their local Women's March and created a Snapchat geofilter to promote their message!
#IAmMyBeautiful began in fall 2016 and has slowly gained a following across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The campaign has been featured on the Instagram of the All Woman Project - a body positivity project run in New York that has partnered with brands like Nike - and the Twitter of lkldLOOKBOOK amongst various other mentions.