We found two-thirds of girls experienced harassment in school

“IN 2019, I would like to see more girls having more confidence and speaking out on issues that matter to them and being invited into important discussions. With Girl Guiding Scotland next year we’re developing a youth forum and my role with them is helping lead to that. I’m really excited to give our members a space to speak out on issues that effect girls and young women.

I’ve had lots of opportunities over the past four years. I’ve given evidence at the Scottish Parliament in committees and met MPs and MSPs. So I definitely feel that I’ve been listened to and I’m keen to help other girls have that same experience. I’ve done a lot of work on sexual harassment and in particular harassment in schools.

Research we did a few years ago found that two-thirds of girls had experienced some sort of harassment in school. That’s unacceptable and we had the opportunity to bring that evidence to the Scottish Parliament and do some work with them on how we can change things, for instance develop personal and social education.

We started that work before the Weinstein scandal came out. Movements like #MeToo and Times Up have forced people to take these issues more seriously.

Brexit makes the year ahead really uncertain. I voted Remain and I’m definitely worried about losing certain rights. For instance, I was on an Erasmus exchange year last year and after school I worked for a year to save up to go travelling around Europe. I do French and politics at Edinburgh University, so I feel that possibilities from that might be more limited. I’d hope that those rights that we had will remain but no-one knows what will happen

Nicola Sturgeon is probably one of my political heroes. I remember looking up to her even when she was just Health Secretary and thinking that women can be a force to be reckoned with in politics.”