Empowering Girls to Stand in Their Stories | Laura Peña

Growing up in the Dominican Republic, Laura Peña (http://www.laurapena.com/about) discovered a love of design, animation, filmmaking, storytelling and technology that led her to New York City to study. Her fierce commitment to her craft created a fast name in the space, led her work with many of the top brands in the world, and eventually found her own creative design lab, JelloMonsters.

But, an experience back in the Dominican Republic set in motion a different quest that would lead her to put nearly every other part of her life on hiatus. She wanted to find a way to give voice to teenage girls. To share their stories, their hopes, dreams, fears, struggles and triumphs in a real and empowering way. She wanted them to choose what mattered, to be in charge of the way they would be seen and heard and accepted.

With that, the video docuseries, She Is The Universe (http://www.sheistheuniverse.org/) was born, along with a platform designed to amplify the voices girls from around the world. For the past year, Peña has been traveling the globe, on a mission to capture and share the stories of 111 teenage girls of all shapes, sizes, colors, languages, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds. Her ultimate goal is to not only offer their unfiltered stories, the way they choose to tell it, but also create a place for them to see themselves in others and find a sense of community, mentorship and possibility.

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