Muslim Girls Making Change spread messages through poetry

SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Four Muslim girls from Vermont are using their voices and powerful performance poetry to get their message out about being Muslim in America, stereotypes, and other issues near to them.

Muslim Girls Making Change is competing this week in an international youth poetry slam competition in Washington, DC.

Sixteen-year-old Kirin Waqar of South Burlington, whose parents are from Pakistan, says the group writes poems about things that they can't keep inside anymore and care so much about.

Sixteen-year-old Hawa Adam, whose parents moved to Vermont from Somali when she was 5, got the idea to start the group and says it's a way for her to express herself and make connections with other people.