In honour of the UN’s International Day of the Girl 2018, Stylist is running a Made By Girls takeover, with all of our content online and in a special print issue created by girls aged five to 17.

On 11 October, we went into Blenheim High School in Surrey and handed over control of stylist.co.uk to a team of girls aged 11 to 16. The girls ran our morning news meeting, pitched and wrote articles, and learned about the roles of Stylist team members including website developers and picture editors. They even created their own mini-websites, highlighting the women they most admire.

We asked the girls to tell us more about what they were interested in. Paulina, an 11-year-old from Year 7, had one answer: cats – and, in particular, her cat, Tina.

Intrigued, we sat down with her and had a very interesting chat about how owning a cat reduces feelings of loneliness (a Swiss study conducted in 2003 revealed that owning a cat is similar to having a romantic partner), lowers blood pressure and has a proven calming effect. Indeed, when we dug into the science behind it all, we found that petting a cat triggers the release of oxytocin, the hormone known for inducing feelings of love and trust. No wonder a study has found that children with autism are more likely to be less anxious and calm while petting a cat.

With that in mind, we wanted to hear more from Paulina about her relationship with Tina. This is what she had to say…

Made By Girls: “How a black cat became my best friend”