The Girl Effect

AJWS recognizes the powerful potential of girls to effect social change in the developing world and is providing long-term support to grassroots organizations that focus on girls’ empowerment, providing girls with access to educational, health and economic resources.

AJWS joins the Girl Effect in its pursuit of the powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate.

Through a partnership with the Nike Foundation’s Grassroots Girls Initiative (GGI), AJWS and other leading grantmaking organizations are empowering adolescent girls by supporting grassroots organizations in implementing programs, conducting advocacy, strengthening their organizational and programmatic capacities, and collaborating with other partners.

AJWS supports 10 organizations throughout Ethiopia, Kenya and India that are creating safe spaces for adolescent girls to grow and flourish, and become change-makers within their communities. AJWS has strengthened these groups’ programs on the ground and made their work more visible in national and international forums that promote the needs and priorities of girls.

Girls at the Center: Leaders in the Making

In April 2012, nearly 25 AJWS grantees gathered in Istanbul, Turkey to participate in a conference on gender equality, sustainable development and women's human rights organized by the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID). In partnership with the Nike Foundation's Grassroots Girls Initiative (GGI), AJWS enabled adolescent girls from Ethiopia and India to hone their leadership skills for human rights by attending the conference. And these girls made their voices heard among women's rights activists from nearly every country in the world. For once, girls were able to speak for themselves and help set the agenda for a just future.

Girl Effect Grantees

India

To raise awareness among families and communities about the importance of girls' education, discourage the trafficking of girls, and raise awareness among adolescent girls about their basic rights.

Video Kenya

To build the advocacy capacity of adolescent girl-focused civil society organizations and facilitate a shared girl-focused advocacy agenda by leading a community of practice in Nairobi.

Kenya

To provide safe spaces for rural adolescent girls to promote girls’ and women’s education, health and rights in Kuria, Kenya.

Kenya

To build the long-term self-sufficiency of unaccompanied refugee girls in Nairobi by providing case-management services, basic education, life-skills training, vocational training, financial literacy and income generation through a cooperative.

Ethiopia

To enable female students to defend their rights and improve their academic performance by building a network of school girls' clubs, and by providing trainings on reproductive health, gender, leadership, peer education and paralegal skills.

India

To empower girls to advocate for their right to education and to demand an end to violence and discrimination in West Bengal, India.

Ethiopia

To promote the retention of adolescent girls in secondary school through financial support, mentorship, training and peer education.

India

To provide educational opportunities to adolescent girls and boys within the school systems in Gujarat that address issues of gender justice and communal violence; to facilitate trainings on interpersonal violence and rebuild trust between different religious groups in the slums of Baroda.

India

To strengthen women and girls ability to resist sexual exploitation and sexual and gender-based violence by providing education, vocational training, counseling services and employment opportunities to marginalized Muslim adolescent girls and educating community members on sex trafficking, domestic violence and the health needs of adolescent girls.

Ethiopia

To enable girls and young women to defend their rights and attend school by providing financial support and counseling, as well as training on reproductive health, gender equality, assertiveness and leadership.