As we head into the second half of the year, we wanted to give you an update on the progress we’re making here at Girls Gearing Up, thanks to your support!
We are very busy finalizing all of the planning for our 2022 Leadership Academy, which kicks off July 9th in Germany and Malawi, and will take place in India in September.
Here are a few highlights about the 2022 Academy:
▪️ We’re looking forward to bringing together 75 aspiring teen changemakers from 18 countries in three locations.
▪️Five participants and a facilitator will be joining us from Ghana as a first step in launching a hub there in 2023.
▪️Based on research, interviews with Power Mentors, and in-person and online collaboration, the three hubs will create a Handbook for Changemakers focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
▪️Thanks to a generous donation of MacBooks by Meta, each hub will have enough laptops for all of the girls to actively contribute to the Changemaker Handbook project. For many of our participants, this is also an excellent opportunity to practice computer literacy skills.
▪️We are honored and excited to have received a CCP Synergy grant from the institut für auslandsbeziehungen which will permit an exchange of Academy participants and facilitators between India and Germany, enabling us to strengthen mutual learning & exchange between the two hubs.
▪️In Malawi and Germany, a total of three GGU alumnae will be joining the teams as interns. Watching these girls grow up and become leaders and role models in our community makes us so proud.
Mentoring
Our second mentoring cohort is well underway, and we are so pleased about the great progress our mentor/ mentee pairs are making. While some of our mentees are working on building a social business and finding a first job, others are deciding on tertiary education pathways and gaining financial literacy skills.
In all cases, we are so thankful for the mentors who donate their time to support our participants. Also thanks to our mentors and volunteers, we are building an online library of mentor-prepared skill building videos and additional resources for the GGU community. This is a great opportunity for girls to develop skills regardless of where they are in the world.
Year-round online engagement
In addition to our monthly online discussion groups, in the past three months we were proud to bring our international community together for two bigger online events:
The 2022 online reunion, held in April, was entirely conceptualized, planned, and implemented by our Youth Advisory Board. Under the theme of GGUnity, our alumnae virtually brought together girls from multiple cohorts and several countries for discussion, exchange, and an inspiring Power Mentor interview with Samira Mahboub, social entrepreneur and co-founder of Limala.
In response to mounting concerns from parents, teachers, coaches, and participants about mental health issues in the past two years, we hosted an online mental health workshop in May for teen girls and all of their allies. Two fantastic experts in the field, Bianca Humbert, a Clinical Counselor, andManouk Tideman, a certified yoga therapist, donated their time to share helpful insights and concrete strategies with the participants.
New website!
After several months of hard work by one of our volunteers, we are so excited to finally launch our brand new website. Please check it out here: www.girlsgearingup.org
As you can see, we are doing everything we can to make 2022 a year of growth and development for our future female leaders, and of increased sustainability in their communities and around the world.
We are also working on building sustainability for our organization, so if you have any ideas about companies, foundations, or individuals who would be interested in supporting our mission to equip the next generation of female leaders, we would be very thankful for an introduction!
We look forward to sharing updates and stories about the 2022 Academies in the fall. In the meantime, our sincerest thanks for your support.
