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Girls Helping Girls

It's not often that you come across a nonprofit whose Executive Director is in high school.


by Flickr user +CoSmOs+ But that's exactly the case with Girls Helping Girls, an international nonprofit based in the San Francisco Bay Area that practices within its own organization what it purports to do in the world: it empowers girls. By placing high school girls at the forefront of its national and international leaders, Girls Helping Girls achieves its mission internally, while "partnering girls in the United States with girls in schools and community organizations in developing countries to jointly identify problems in their communities and develop social change through micro-lending projects."

By bringing groups of girls together to discuss broad social issues such as poverty, education, health, and the promotion of peace, Girls Helping Girls strives to address statistics such as these: that 94% of youth in America feel powerless to make a difference, or that one-third of girls in the San Francisco area report feeling depressed. Using a close-knit format, groups of girls in the United States make connections with girls around the world -- called "Sister Groups"-- and develop social service projects around what they learn from each other.

Want to learn more about ways you can support girls to build a better world? Watch this video from Girl Effect and help increase the sustainability of the planet. You can also join the over 1,300 organizations on Idealist working to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide, from Girls Scouts to Global Girl Media.