Grace McCabe
2024
Grace McCabe
Age: 21
Location: Strathaven
Pronouns: she/her
Grace is a 21-year-old final year law student and campaigner, hoping to qualify as a solicitor to use her profession for the common good of others.
Since age 15, she has been an activist with Girlguiding Scotland, campaigning for gender-sensitive media reporting around women and girls and for safer public spaces. This work has received two motions of support in the Scottish Parliament, and in 2023 she was shortlisted by the United Nations as a Safe Spaces Now Champion. Building on this work, Grace became co-Lead Volunteer for Speak Out, transitioning from panel member to facilitator. She has skilfully led a cohort of 20 young members, supporting them to campaign on issues they care about and shape the organisation’s advocacy work.
As a delegate at UN CSW68, Grace contributed to discussions on social protection systems, access to public services, and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. She brought insights from her research on feminist town planning to the table, engaging with representatives of Member States, UN entities, and NGOs. As a campaigner for Magic Breakfast, Grace wrote an open letter to MPs on ending child food insecurity and spoke at the Youth4Food festival about the need for revolutionising the global food system.
Her studies focus around access to justice and critically analysing the law to better suit the needs of women and girls. This work has saw her be shortlisted by the Next 100 Years organisation as Law Student of the Year. Grace has used her legal education to help wrongly-convicted individuals, working pro bono as a caseworker at the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation. She also helped host the GCU Law Clinic Street Law School Moot, educating younger law students about legal practice, courtroom etiquette, and argument structuring.
She is a 3x marathon runner, member of The Young Women’s Movement advisory collective, Lead Volunteer at Girlguiding Scotland and was a top 10 finalist at the 2024 Miss Scotland competition.