Ayat, 15, lives in a refugee camp in Gaza, part of the occupied Palestinian territories on the Mediterranean coast, next to Israel. 

For many years, Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories, which means they control them with the Israeli army. Israel controls everything going in or out of Gaza. Recently Israel completely closed Gaza off, which means many people there are getting poorer and poorer, without enough food, clothes or clean water. 

Ayat, who's a Palestinian, used to be very shy and frightened. 'There's no person in Gaza who didn't see violence, or hear the bombs fall,' she says. 'I was scared to leave the house.'

Now Ayat and her friends go to the 'Builders of the Future' youth centre, a group for girls in the camp, supported by Christian Aid. A woman called Wessal who works at the centre has been helping build Ayat's confidence and let go of some of her fears. Ayat likes Wessal because 'she didn't take me as a problem but took me as an energy that had not been invested yet.'

In Gaza, girls have lots of reasons why they might not be happy. Ayat says when you ask girls why they are sad, 'they say "my mother is sick and we can’t get medicine", or "my parents are fighting because there's no fuel".'

Ayat now helps other girls at the centre too. 'Now I've come here and run programmes I feel brave enough to talk to anyone,' she says. 'This summer, I ran the sports camp. We did fun activities in the water, and skipping, jumping, marathons, races, fishing and swimming. Afterwards we produced a magazine about everything that we had done.'
 
'I now have an opinion on everything, and I can be involved in decisions at home,' she says proudly.