picture courtesy of GGRF.

The Good for Girls Annual online fundraiser is live, and we hope you’ll consider a contribution!! No amount is too little, every penny counts when it comes to helping give disadvantaged girls a leg up.

Help us raise $5000 to support our program partnerships for 2018. Our grant support helps pilot or expand initiatives by small, on-the-ground organizations who work directly with girls and young women at risk.

Click here to donate!
(or copy/paste this link into your browser: https://www.crowdrise.com/good-for-girls-annual-fundraiser-2016)

What are you helping us to do?
Since 2014, we have partnered with the Girls Gotta Run Foundation in Ethiopia, where child marriage is a serious problem and girls are often taken out of school once they reach puberty. We have helped them pilot and expand initiatives that reach girls through athletics and a life skills program. Through scholarships, girls train as runners, and learn about issues that affect their lives such as nutrition, healthy relationships, and financial literacy. The running team represents a ‘safe space’ and peer-support group, and the scholarships help remove any financial burdens on the girls’ families so they can stay enrolled in school. We also support a Savings Group for the mothers of these girls (many of whom are single mothers) to provide a peer-learning environment where they can better their livelihood skills to support their families.

In 2017, the very first co-hort of 15 girls graduated from the 3-year program – all will be continuing their education, and all are no longer at risk of child marriage (read more here). From just 15 girls 3 years ago, today we help GGRF provide scholarships to 90 girls, and 35 of their mums.

In July this year, we began partnering with an organization in Singapore called Daughters of Tomorrow, which helps underprivileged women seek out livelihood opportunities and build financially independent and resilient families (read more here).

In the women’s back-to-work journeys, the burden of care often falls on their older children. Girls, typically, end up having to help look after younger siblings, while their mums look for work to make ends meet. These teenage girls therefore have to miss out on opportunities after school such as enrichment courses, school excursions, sports and other extra-curricular development. Many give up on their dreams to pursue sports or the arts from a young age, because of the practical needs at home. Some girls also end up having to quit school altogether to work to help the family out financially.

Good for Girls and DOT are piloting a “Care Fund” that women can dip into to pay for babysitting and other care-related needs to free up their older daughters’ time. The fund is also meant to be a resource to provide small amounts to cover basic costs of after-school activities (such as fees, transport, equipment rental, etc), which girls usually cannot afford.

Picture courtesy of DOT.

Thank you to all who came out to ride with us yesterday at the Second Good for Girls Charity Ride at SoulCycle!

Special thanks also to everyone who donated bikes, or who made a contribution but couldn’t attend at the last minute!

WE MET OUR FUNDRAISING GOAL THANKS TO YOU!!!!

Help us empower girls! Support the Good for Girls 2016 annual fundraiser!

Photo credit: Girls Gotta Run Foundation

Good for Girls is a volunteer-run non-profit organization that supports disadvantaged girls around the world to get the education and skills they need to become empowered adults. We partner with needs-focused, partner-led organizations through small grants, scholarships and program assistance to help facilitate or move projects forward.

There are too many girls who are being deprived of an education or the opportunity to build life skills, just because they are girls. Globally, an estimated 62 million girls are not in school. There are many reasons for this. It may be unsafe for girls to travel to and from school. Their families may not be able, or willing, to pay school-related costs. They may be forced to drop out to help at home or be married off at an early age. These situations trap girls in endless cycles of poverty as they grow into women, preventing them from developing their human potential, and depriving the world of what talents and abilities they have to offer.

This has got to change, and we need your help to be a part of that change!

Your donation will go towards scholarship and grant support for our partner organizations, who we work closely with to directly reach girls at risk. Project Good for Girls is recognised as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All donations (made in the United States) are tax-exempt to the fullest extent allowed by law.

Where your donations will go:

Since 2014 Good for Girls has partnered with the Girls Gotta Run Foundation in Ethiopia, where child marriage is a serious problem and girls are often taken out of school once they reach puberty. We have helped them pilot and expand initiatives that reach girls through athletics and a life skills program. Through scholarships, girls train as runners, and learn about issues that affect their lives such as nutrition, healthy relationships, and financial literacy. The running team represents a ‘safe space’ and peer-support group, and the scholarships help remove any financial burdens on the girls’ families so they can stay enrolled in school.

We also support a Savings Group for the mothers of these girls (many of whom are single mothers) to provide a peer-learning environment where they can learn or better their livelihood skills to support their families.

In addition, in 2017, Good for Girls will begin partnering with organizations in Singapore who work with women and girls. Although Singapore is touted as one of the richest countries in the world, what is less well known is that the income gap between high-income and lower-income families is growing exponentially, not least because of the current economic downturn. A traditionally thin government assistance system is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of families facing hardship. Estimates of between 20-35% of households are living in relative poverty – with the elderly and single mothers most vulnerable.*

The impact on children is alarming, with persistent gender stereotypes coupled with greater self-esteem issues giving rise to a disproportionate impact on adolescent girls in particular. For example, girls are expected to help with sibling childcare so their parents can go to work, depriving them of participating in extra-curricular school activities. Girls are also at greater risk of exploitation and harm when their families are forced to share rental flats, when family members are targeted by loan sharks, or when they are forced to start working at a young age to help put food on the table.

[*info provided by AWARE and Daughters of Tomorrow)