By Janae Phillips, Advocacy Programs Manager
She’s the First is proud to announce our 2025-2026 Girl Activist Fellowship cohort! The Girl Activist Fellowship is an 18-month program where girls learn grassroots organizing skills by planning and executing their own campaigns for girls’ rights.
This year marks a special moment in the history of the Girl Activist Fellowship program: for the first time, we have simultaneous cohorts. While our 2024-2025 cohort finishes its last five months of experience, the 2025-2026 cohort is just beginning. By overlapping, these girls will have the opportunity to learn from one another from two sides of the same experience.
We received over 300 applications for this year’s cohort, and after an intensive and competitive process are thrilled to introduce you to the 32 girls who will represent She’s the First as Girl Activist Fellows.
Who are the Girl Activist Fellows?
This year’s cohort represents 17 countries and a broad spectrum of lived experiences.
5% are the first in their family to go to school, 7% are the first in their family to go to high school, and 16% are the first in their family to go to college
7% are immigrants
5% are Indigenous
7% are LGBTQIA+
9% are a racial or ethnic minority in their respective countries
The girls selected for this fellowship showed a deep commitment not only to girls' rights but to the needs and strengths of their communities. They are representatives of She’s the First’s commitment to grassroots leadership.
What’s it like to be a Girl Activist Fellow?
For the next 12 months, Girl Activist Fellows will meet twice a month to learn key campaign organizing skills directly from She’s the First staff. Working in teams, these girls will then identify an issue they want to address and develop a campaign around that issue from start to finish. Then, in the Spring of 2026, the Fellows will execute their visions as official She’s the First advocacy campaigns. For She’s the First, it’s one of our best examples of girl-centered work becoming girl-led.
“The Girl Activist Fellowship has taught me the fundamentals of being a good listener, leader, and peer to my fellow activists.”
Experience the first cohort’s advocacy campaigns and learn more about the need for this fellowship.