It says so right on the EEB1 website: "the school celebrates diversity". And while there is no doubt that learning alongside students from over 60 countries makes us all more open-minded, we have to ask ourselves, exactly how far can students learn to celebrate diversity when 50% of them aren't presented with role models that they can identify with?

Our campus in Uccle has 10 buildings named after people who have had an impact on European history, science, and culture. If you take a short walk from your locker to the laboratories, and then on to your philosophy class, you will go in and out of the "Bruegel", "Da Vinci" and "Plato" buildings. Later in the day, you might enter the "Aristotle" or "Gutenberg". There is just one problem, only one of the buildings is named after a woman, the "Fabiola" building, which is currently empty for renovations. 

This is not acceptable. Our school has a duty to tell their female pupils that they are just as capable of having a major impact on the World as their male classmates. Representation matters. By seeing the names of fellow women above the doors of their school buildings, girls will learn that they have had a major role in shaping the present (something our school curriculums often ignore, but that is a story for another time). 

I am under no illusion, I know that this will not solve any of the huge issues women and girls still face. But it is a step in the right direction; it sends a powerful message. 

Please sign this petition to tell our director, Mrs Ruiz Esturla, to rename half the building on the EEB1 Uccle campus after women who have changed Europe. And maybe one day, we will go to Chemistry class in the "Maria Skłodowska-Curie" laboratories, learn languages in the "Anne Frank" building and study history in the "Emmeline Pankhurst" building.