The Future Rising Fellowship Program is part of Girl Rising’s new storytelling and social action program Future Rising. Its mission is to highlight and support the vital connections between girls’ education and climate change.  There are currently 11 Future Rising fellows from all over the world. You can learn more about the connections between girls’ education and better climate outcomes here.

Written by Girl Rising Fellow Interviewee Alex Nguyen

I will tell you the story of one of the girls I met during the first stage of working. Her name is Mua. I followed her work in the mountainous area in the northern part of Vietnam where she is currently living and working. She was born in a place which is notorious for human trafficking and child marriages, but she is the only one from her village that chose to pursue higher education. This decision has changed her life a lot.  In her village, most of the girls would get married at the age of 12 or so.  Even though it is illegal, early marriage is one of the biggest problems in the northern areas. Another problem is that if girls do not get married they will go to China to become workers in the factories so they can send money back to the village since it is very poor. 

But Mua chose neither of these options. She had demonstrated her uniqueness since she was a young girl. She spent most of her time alone, talking to herself, and even laughing at herself walking through the fields in her region, rather than gathering and playing with other girls. She is a huge fan of plants and flowers. Her dream is to simply surround herself with trees or forests. Walking 5,6km per day from the paddy field where her parents worked to her house was a routine part of her life. In general, she was different from many of the other girls in her village.

She went to the city and worked hard to pay for her living. She got a scholarship for her education.  Mua never felt ashamed of her background and origins while studying in the big cities, despite the fact that prejudice against minority groups in Vietnam is still common. She recalls her friend complaining to her on the first day of arriving in the capital to register for her university about how she could wear such old sandals and why she kept speaking in her minority languages. "I'm not ashamed to be a Hmong person; the only thing I'm ashamed of is not helping my family enough." - she shared. During her time in the capital, she worked tirelessly on various projects to dispel the majority group's misconceptions and prejudices about her ethnicity.

Mua finished her degree in law and decided to go back to her hometown. There she decided to open an environmental initiative which supports local wisdom and helps farmers to care for the environment with new sustainable practices in agriculture.

When she was a little girl, it rained more than it does now, the rainy season came earlier. But now it's dry and the difference is obvious. It's raining less and less, and they are sowing rice in the field with no water. All rice is dependent on rain, but if you sow it for a few days without water, it will spoil and not germinate. " I don't understand why it's been so hot for so long, the seeds can't be planted," Mua's mother explains. Many farmers have quit farming to work in China. Farming in the traditional Hmong style is difficult, especially in hot weather. Farming used to be simple because the air was cool, but now it's more difficult because it's hotter. Weather also has an impact on income. Last year, Mua’s family received 63 bags of rice, but this year, they only received 30 bags. This year, the entire village is suffering. The price of paddy has risen, and the weather is becoming increasingly difficult for all farmers. Mua’s project intends to construct a small factory in her hometown that will provide tools and techniques to farmers in order to protect indigenous seeds from the effects of climate change.

When I met Mua, she was nine months pregnant as a surrogate to another woman. Pregnancy at nine months is a lot, but she was still working, still climbing the mountains, still meeting in the community meetings. When I would walk with her I felt that she was even healthier than me because she could climb the mountains without any complaint. She was so strong even when she was pregnant. I think Mua’s story is such an inspiring and beautiful story to be told.