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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: a skills-building, outcomes-improving hub for women who uplift girls in their communities.

Grassroots leaders request us to address topics like:

  • designing responsive SRHR 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.

Worldwide, girls are treated as second to boys. That’s why we put girls first.

Too often, girls are denied an education, told who and when to marry, and blocked from leadership. Educated and respected girls are the exception, not the norm.

This must change:

out of secondary school worldwide—almost the size of the entire UK
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When a girl is educated, respected, and heard,

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Girls face many obstacles.
Things like...

  • poverty

  • gender-based violence and discrimination

  • expectations for early marriage and traditional roles

  • restrictions on reproductive healthcare

  • limited sex ed curriculums

  • long, dangerous routes to school

But when she gets what she deserves, she...

  • sees herself as a leader

  • contributes meaningfully to her community

  • earns up to 20% more income as an adult for each additional year of schooling

  • is less likely to marry early & more likely to be in a healthy relationship

  • gets to choose when and if she has children

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she is unstoppable.

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Sources: World Bank, Girls Not Brides, UNICEF, UN Women