Alaia’s story
Alaia is a 15-year-old girl, an immigrant living in Finland. She has been quite happy, even she has been wondering why she is not able to have the same freedom as her Finnish friends. She has been wondering many things that are different in her family and community. Alaia and her sister’s life is very restricted while her brothers may go as they please. But, she is not to question or speak out loud her thoughts. Lately she has been nervous, her family is planning a trip to their origin home country. This trip seems to be special, and Alaia might not return back home. Her family is happy, but Alaia is afraid. It seems there is not a soul to turn for help.
Alaia’s school teacher, Pekka, has noticed that Alaia has been different for some time, he is nervous and quiet. Pekka feels that something is not right, but he has been unable to get Alaia to open up. Pekka is sad, because he doesn’t know what to do.
Alaia’s teacher decides to have a conversation with We Encourage AI tool that their school uses for guidance and help for situations when teachers are suspecting domestic violence, or girls being under threat of forced marriages. Alaia seems to have the typical symptoms of victims being forced to marriage.
Alaia’s teacher tells Alaia about We Encourage AI. One day at school Alaia looks up We Encourage AI chat and starts a conversation with it. All of the sudden, she notices that she has opened the pandora’s box of years of anxiety and questions that have been troubling her mind. The AI tool assists her to contact a person from the We Encourage network.
Alaia is invited to the We Encourage community and she gets a safety net and support, she finds tools to start healing herself and she makes new friends, one of them is Arezo. Alaia finds courage to stand against her family and community, she refuses to get married and decides to continue her education. With the help of We Encourage’s partner network, and the We Encourage community and AI tool she begins her journey towards empowerment and independency.
Arezo and Alaia are fictional, yet thir story is based on the real-life situation of tens of millions of girls. Our solution is aimed for helping those girls and women in need.
