“Amika is a credit to her generation and makes me feel so much better about the future. Her tireless campaigning to make period poverty a thing of the past in the UK has helped millions of girls. The social and economic benefits of this will be seen for many years to come. I’m delighted to see that she has put her passion into words.”

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

Amika George is a British activist who, while still attending school and taking her A-Levels, began a campaign to end period poverty in the UK. She founded the Free Periods movement, held protests and was eventually victorious in getting the government to provide schools with funding to provide school and college children with free sanitary products so that they no longer have to miss days of education simply because they can’t afford these products.

George’s recently published book, Make It Happen, is a handbook that guides readers through ‘how to be an activist’ and how to tackle world issues in 2021. The guide follows Amika’s own journey of activism with the Free Period campaign highlighting the lessons she learned and sharing some of the best tips she has for young people hoping to make a change in the world.

Make It Happen also brilliantly weaves into its narrative interviews with other activists including Deborah Frances-White (founder of The Guilty Feminist Podcast), Caroline Criado Perez (who campaigned for Jane Austen to appear on a bank note, for a statue of Millicent Fawcett to feature in Parliament Square, and authored Invisible Women), Adwoa Aboah (founder of Gurls Talk), Josie Naughton (Co-founder of Help Refugees), Shiden Tekle (activist and founder of Legally Black), and many more. These interviews serve to provide different perspectives on activism, further tips on how to make your voice heard, as well as supporting Amika’s George’s points.

As well as being a great handbook for anyone who is trying to tackle an issue in the world, Make It Happen also works as a way to further Amika George’s Free Period campaign by continuing the conversation, particularly regarding the stigma of menstruation, with the sharing of statistics and stories.

Amika George’s Make It Happen: How to be an Activist is a book that tells you have to use your anger and passion about an issue or inequality and turn it into the power to make change.

 

Reviewed by:

Catherine Muxworthy, Booksbirdblog

Added 22nd February 2021

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Catherine Muxworthy