Global Girl Project is an international initiative dedicated towards mobilising socially-minded and community driven girls from the Global South to become leaders and agents of social change. Our innovative programs are designed to enrich skills-sets, generate self-worth and voice, and provide knowledge for these young leaders to implement their initiatives within their communities, thereby creating true societal change.
We have been working in India since 2016, first with our partners Kranti in Mumbai and then with our partner Pratham Education in order to deliver high quality leadership for social change training to 60 girls so far in Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad. Our Blended Learning Leadership Initiative is a three-month leadership journey for girls, during which they learn about using their voice for community change, and run a community event about a social issue, reaching over 600 community members so far. Following the Blended Learning Leadership Initiative we see 97% of girls saying they want to go on to make more change in their community and a 152% increase in girls feeling confident to voice their views on issues in their community. As part of our programming, girls become part of a global network of changemaking leaders from the Global South who they can continue to learn and connect with on our secure online platform, Global Graduates Connect.
When we asked our girls in Gujarat about the programme, they said:
“This project has been so important for us as it has given us a better understanding of our society, and we felt ourselves learning something new in each session. We chose to address the issue of a clean environment and organised an event about this issue attended by community members where we shared the message about this issue through lots of different activities.
We were also able to talk with girls just like us but from other countries or states as part of the sessions, and we realised that they face the same challenges that we do. We learnt about how to connect using the internet, and how to use Google Translate and the Global Graduates Connect platform so we can always stay connected. We also learnt about how to use what we have around us and about how to work effectively as a team.
Before we joined this programme, we couldn’t talk in front of others, we were shy and didn’t think we could speak in front of elders. Through this project, we gained self-confidence: before the event we were very nervous and were not sure if we would be able to deliver it effectively, but thanks to the programme we were able to deliver our message confidently in front of a large audience.”
Our girls in Gujarat
Asma Unnisa, who runs the Blended Learning Leadership Initiative in Hyderabad said: “when we were having discussions about the role of a leader or the qualities of a leader, I had to dig a lot to go through their lives and understand their thinking about what it means to be a leader… But I came to know that almost all the girls are doing something that may be very small but it is definitely making social change… I was so happy to see the faces of all the girls after realising that they are a social change maker.”
With our programme rapidly expanding in partnership with Pratham, our Founding Director Julia Lynch has been visiting India to meet Pratham in person as well as many of our girls. After spending almost two weeks hearing from our girls, their mothers, their fathers, their community members, and our Project Facilitators, she has shared the following insights:
The unique topic of girls’ leadership and our method of facilitation and delivery, makes the Blended Learning Leadership Initiative a truly radical program within the context of marginalized communities in India
The overarching theme of almost every conversation that she has had in the last two weeks is that we need to exponentially increase the number of our program locations in India, as the need for our innovative programming is enormous.
The barriers that a girl faces that often stand between her and a quality education are numerous, and this is why our model of working in partnership and on the ground with local facilitators is key to addressing those barriers, and therefore, welcoming more girls into our GGP global network.
Some parents shared that after seeing their daughter graduate through our programming they either decided to let her return to her education and graduate, postpone her planned marriage, or encourage her to graduate and get her own job and independence.
Our graduates and our partners are asking for more programming for our graduates. They want us to engage with our graduates at least on a quarterly basis to offer ongoing training and opportunities. So we need to find a way to do this through Global Graduates Connect.
