Olivia Vella may only be 13, but she has wisdom beyond her years. The seventh grader from Queen Creek Middle School in Arizona has left the world speechless with a powerful, end-of-school-year assignment centered around peer pressure, body image, and many of the other issues young girls face in school.
It started as a written assignment and became a poem. The poem then became a monologue. The school posted the video of Olivia delivering it to its Facebook page on May 23. Since then it’s spread like wildfire, making the rounds on social media. One copy of the video has 22 million views. And it’s become a powerful rallying cry for parents and young girls alike.
“People I don’t even know would say, ‘Hey Olivia I really liked your monologue and I feel the exact same way,'” she told KPHO-TV in Phoenix. “And it was really eye opening because I for most of the time thought I was the only one that felt this way and I was crazy for feeling it.”
“Pick out an outfit that will fit in with the latest trends and won’t make you the laughing stock of the school. More than you already are,” she says in the video. “Put on some makeup so you can actually show your face in public so you can be a little bit pretty.”
Still, she ends it with a powerful message:
“But society is wrong. You are loved, you are precious, you a beautiful, you are talented you are capable, you are deserving of respect. You can eat that meal, you are one in 7 billion. And most of all you are good enough.”
Watch the entire thing below. And trust us, you will want to watch the entire thing:
Posted by Queen Creek Middle School on Tuesday, May 23, 2017
