Our Mission in Action
She’s the First teams up with grassroots leaders to make sure girls everywhere are educated, respected, and heard.
Who are those grassroots leaders? They are girls who are organizing peers in their area to stand up together for their rights, such as by hosting a demonstration in Nepal, producing a reproductive rights art show in New York, or leading a farm project that raised funds for girls’ tuition in Uganda. They are women running programs for girls in oppressed communities, from rural Kenya to the mountain valleys of Peru to remote towns in India.
And what do we do with them? We teach a girl how to speak up for herself in her home, school, and community, while we teach the mentors in her life practical ways to support her agency.
Here’s what that looks like:
We Train Girls Everywhere as Activists
Girls often aren’t invited into the room where decisions affect them. Their ideas matter, and they are more than ready to lead.
As the co-organizers of The Global Girls’ Bill of Rights®, we believe in the power girls have to advocate for themselves. Our programs provide girls with the platforms and resources they need to speak up for their rights in their homes, schools, and communities. Whether they’re planning to approach a teacher, a friend, or their local government, girls leave these programs better equipped to promote their needs.
We call this systems-changing aspect of our work the Girls First Institute: the premier skills-building, outcomes-improving training program designed exclusively for women who uplift girls in their communities. We teach mentors and program leaders how to create more effective programming that equips them to shatter barriers for girls; our professional development leads to programmatic changes and improvements that positively impact girls' lives.
Grassroots leaders request us to address topics like:
designing responsive sex ed programs with and for girls
hosting ethical focus groups with girls
including girls in program design cycles
assessing drop-out risks
values-based storytelling
best practices for feminist mentorship
Organizations in our training cohorts receive flexible grants, to support girls’ access to school and after-school mentorship programs.
Our cohorts collaborate on shared goals to increase girls’ agency through mentorship, and we assist with measurement tools to report those outcomes.
To further our partners’ goals, we also create captivating educational resources that engage girls in learning about their rights and bodies.
