Hidden but not Silent

This week, in the lead-up to International Women’s Day, Abianda will be sharing a series of reflections under the theme Hidden, But Not Silent.

Across the week, you’ll hear voices from across our organisation, from Abianda’s Young Women's Advisory Group, trustees, our team, and our founder Abi. This is a moment to centre the incredible women who shape Abianda every day, and the knowledge, care and resistance they bring into the work.

These are not polished statements or campaign soundbites. They are reflections on power, trust and participation, and on what becomes hidden when systems don’t know how to listen.

Hidden doesn’t mean silent.

It often means girls and women are speaking in ways systems haven’t learned how to hear.  And silence doesn’t mean a lack of power.

We’ll be sharing one reflection each day this week. We hope you’ll read, reflect, and sit with them.

First up is our Head of Programmes - Systems Change, Alex...

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?  Yes. It always has.  So do young women and girls.

Their voices move through classrooms, homes, streets, and screens — steady, searching, alive. They speak in questions, in courage, in quiet resistance. They speak through compliance that masks fear, through anger dismissed as aggression, through dreams edited to fit smaller spaces. They are not silent.

They have never been silent.  What’s missing is not their voices, but us, actually listening.

Too often, the world hears only what confirms its assumptions. Curiosity closes. Judgement rushes in. Openness is replaced by certainty. And when no one leans in, no one asks, no one wonders, no one believes.  The voice is labelled invisible instead of ignored.

But unheard does not mean unspoken.  Hidden does not mean absent.

This International Women’s Day, let us question the forest, not the tree. Let us stay curious where it’s uncomfortable, non-judgemental where it’s easier to dismiss, and open where we’ve been taught to close our minds.  Because their voices are there.

They always have been.

Alex, Head of Programmes - Systems Change