Girls Archives

Women’s Collective Giving: Expanding Power

Beth Ellen Holimon’s mission throughout most of her career has been helping women. For the past five years, she has led Dining for Women, dedicated to eradicating poverty in the developing world for girls and women and achieving gender equity, using a unique model for women’s collective giving. DFW educates approximately 8500 member donors on the underlying issues contributing to women’s inequality. Under Holimon’s leadership as President and CEO, the global giving circle has grown to 500 chapters throughout the U.S.

Each month, DFW selects a charity to receive funding though a rigorous vetting process. The organization’s grant making is guided by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Holimon emphatically asks: “What woman around the world doesn’t want their children to have the very best education, be provided with safe birth options, address climate change, safeguard themselves and their children from domestic violence and acknowledge issues of aging?”

Riki Wilchins: Gender Norms and Intersectionality

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Riki Wilchins, executive director of the nonprofit TrueChild and author of, “Gender Norms & Intersectionality: Connecting Race, Class and Gender.”

What do you wish you had known when you started out in your profession?

I wish I’d realized how difficult and slow social change is. I think when you’re younger, you’re a bit more optimistic. But, any kind of real change takes years, maybe decades, of constant effort and attention.

What is your current greatest professional challenge?

Our goal is getting people to think intersectionally, so they connect race, class and gender norms. The challenge is two-fold: most organizations don’t know how to talk about gender norms, or if they do, they disconnect it from factors like race and class.

Plan Int’l CA Raises Alarm about COVID’s Impact on Children, Girls

TORONTO, March 23, 2020 – As the world faces the worst health crisis of a generation, Plan International Canada is extremely concerned about vulnerable populations around the world – particularly children. Plan International Canada welcome’s the Government of Canada’s recent funding announcement to support humanitarian actors responding to COVID-19 and calls on governments and all responders to consider the unique needs of children, especially girls.

Disease outbreaks affect girls and boys, women and men differently. Policies and interventions must be equitable, protective of human rights, inclusive of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, and responsive to the different needs and risks faced by individuals. It is especially important to apply a gender lens at all times across all actions. Girls, especially those from marginalized communities and with disabilities, may be particularly affected by the secondary impacts of the outbreak due to their age, gender and other exclusion factors.

Platforms for Good: Summer Sanders and Plan International USA

On February 20, 2020, global development organization Plan International USA announced its newest Ambassador, Summer Sanders Schlopy.

An Olympic athlete and most decorated U.S. swimmer in the 1992 Olympics, Summer is known for using her platform for good. She rose to precedence as a member of Stanford’s swimming team, taking on the 1992 National Championship and Olympic Games. In Barcelona, Summer became the most decorated U.S. swimmer with one bronze, one silver, and two gold medals.

In the early 1990s, Summer turned to television, commentating the NCAA Swimming Championships for CBS Sports, and hosting MTV’s surf-and-sun competition show Sandblast. Her numerous television accolades include correspondent, co-host, and host for a range of sporting events, TV series, and competition shows.

Technovation Girls Tackles Social Change with 2020 Coding Contest

On January 14, Technovation celebrated the official start of the 2020 Technovation Girls Challenge. The annual competition teaches teams of girls and nonbinary-identifying young people the basics of coding as they work together to build a mobile app that solves a problem within their communities.

Technovation Girls connects young women (ages 10-18), nonbinary, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals with coding curriculum and mentorship as they work together to tackle social change with mobile apps. (**Image Credit:** Technovation)

Over twelve weeks, students will study Technovation’s coding-focused curriculum as they combine their efforts to imagine, design, and build a functional mobile app that targets common issues like domestic violence, assault, climate change, and bullying. At the end of the program, an online panel of judges selects 50 Finalists to present at the annual Technovation World Summit, held this year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in August.

United for Girls: DICK’S Fdn Invests $5 Million in Girls Soccer

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert; actor, director, and producer Katie Holmes; sports journalist Christine Brennan; and best-selling author and journalist Elaine Welteroth, among others, joined DICK’S Sporting Goods today to discuss the challenges and opportunities girls experience accessing sports and the impact sports and fitness have had on their lives

DICK’S announced its 2020 Women’s Initiative highlighted by The DICK’S Foundation’s $5 million grant to U.S. Soccer Foundation’s ‘United for Girls’ Initiative

NEW YORK, Feb. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Today, DICK’S Sporting Goods and The DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation hosted a Here for Her Summit in New York City, a focused and collective effort to champion women and girls in sports and fitness.

American Eagle Announces #AerieREAL with $400 K in Grants

Film and fashion represent two industries where the misrepresentation of women and minorities still runs rampant. However, fashion industry leader American Eagle is taking active steps to change that.

This year, as part of their Aerie lingerie line, American Eagle rolled out the #AerieREAL Role Models program: a group of ideas-forward young women with a wide range of backgrounds, body types, and lifestyles who model Aerie’s products. The kicker? The models in #AerieREAL photos are not touched up, digitally edited, or misrepresented in advertising. In an industry where impossible standards of beauty are often airbrushed, the prominent featuring of real women with real bodies, real disabilities, and real “flaws” (if you want to call them that) speaks to an encouraging new wave of body-positive empowerment for girls.

PepsiCo Fdn Supports Game-Based Strategy for Young Women Workers

The PepsiCo Foundation is collaborating with the International Youth Foundation (IYF) on a digital life-skills course to help young people, particularly women, succeed in the workplace.

Game-based learning program Passport to Success helps young women develop skills for the workplace. (Image Credit: IYF)

The IYF Passport to Success program is a game-based program that can be accessed by youth worldwide using a mobile device. The 10-hour 18-unit program is designed to be “gender-smart” and includes women serving in various professional and non-traditional roles, as well as in positions of authority. The country-specific curriculum also targets barriers to gender equality as they exist in different regions.

Empowerment is Now Online: the Hello World Connection

Imagine that you had lived your life up to this point never experiencing the internet. No smart phones, no online recipes, no Google searches or social media.

How much would your life change if, one day, you were connected to the online world?

hello world — *Katrin McMillan works with local children on the construction of their Hello Hub. (**Photo Credit:** Project Hello World)*

The potential uses of internet access are abundant: education, job training, medical resources, advancements in farming and agriculture, communication with people across the world, all available at the touch of a button. For many communities, however, that online world is something out of science fiction. Women, children, and entire societies fly under the radar of education and international support simply because they live without access to the world’s information superhighway.

Own Your Power: Elizabeth Yntema on Gender Equality in Dance

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Elizabeth Yntema, president and founder of the Dance Data Project (DDP), which promotes “equity in all aspects of classical ballet by providing a metrics-based analysis through our database while showcasing women-led companies, festivals, competitions, venues, special programs and initiatives.”

1. What do you wish you had known when you started out in your profession?

I wish I had had a female mentor, and she had reassured me that success isn’t defined by a linear path. I have been a corporate attorney, a lobbyist, worked as the Director of Governmental Affairs of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, was employed part-time as a consultant, opened an art gallery and, with three small children, focused on volunteering for a time. Now, I use every single one of my experiences and skills acquired over the decades.

Category: Girls