Girls for Gender Equity

Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) works nationally as an intergenerational organization, through a Black feminist lens, to achieve gender and racial justice by centering the leadership of Black girls and gender-expansive young people of color to reshape culture and policy through advocacy, youth-centered programming, and shifting dominant narratives. Provide the organization's program service accomplishments for each of its three most extensive program services GGE sees change through a combination of I. Direct Service, II. Policy Change and III. Culture Change work.I.GGE offers direct service as an essential entry point for young people into our programs - by serving young people where they are in their youth development stage, we can impact their lives immediately while engaging them to organize around changing the systems that impact their lives. II.Policy and advocacy: To scale change, GGE organizes alongside young people to eliminate the structural barriers that prevent Black cis and trans girls and gender-expansive, non-binary youth of color from living their whole lives. We work to change legislative agendas where young people experience gendered and racialized violence, including but not limited to education, police violence, ending girls incarceration, and ending child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and gender-based violence with attention to young people. III.Culture change: GGEs work is predicated on cross-sector institutions shifting their lens to center on the narratives and needs of young women and girls of color and gender-expansive, non-binary youth of color. Whether philanthropic organizations, government and policymakers, the media, the public, and girls of color themselves, GGE has unabashedly centered Black girls in racial and gender equity movements. GGE advances the work of culture change to shift conditions for the long term. IV.Youth work with GGE through five local and national programs, including: 1. Sisters in Strength (SIS): Healing-centered survivor circles for young people who are survivors of sexual and gender-based violence or allies to survivors. 2. Young Womens Advisory Council (YWAC): Citywide civic engagement program to advance policy and campaign goals of young people. 3. National Young Womens Initiative (YWI) supports civic engagement efforts across the eight National YWI programs in Minnesota, Memphis, DC, Houston, Birmingham, Massachusetts, California, and NY, focused on uplifting cis and trans girls and gender-expansive youth in their communities. 4. The National Agenda for Black Girls national steering committee has developed a shared policy agenda centering on issues that impact Black girls and that they have prioritized. The National Agenda includes six national policy priorities: Passing a national Black Girl Bill of Rights; Healing, well-being, and reproductive justice; Expanding education justice and opportunity; Ending sexual and gender-based violence; Expanding democracy for young people. 5. Policy and advocacy: We work to change legislative agendas where young people experience gendered and racialized violence, including but not limited to education, police violence, ending girls incarceration, and ending child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and gender-based violence with attention to young people.