Like all educators, Girls Leadership Program Manager Catherine del Castillo gets up early. There’s always a lot to do, and she has a long commute before she can even start. It’s January in New York and the cold is biting. Catherine checks her phone, hoping for a distraction from the seeping chill, but instead there’s a bombardment of catastrophe, trauma. Genocide. This is the world she’s supposed to prepare her students to enter? Then something interrupts the bleakness: there’s a quote on her screen from James Baldwin,: “You can’t tell the children there’s no hope.” It’s bold and simple and ve ..read more

Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teen in Oklahoma, died on February 8, 2024. Before their death, they were the victim of bullying in their school, and their death has been linked to a violent altercation with other students. Though not all details are clear, there is reason to believe Nex’s death was linked to their gender identity. Girls Leadership shares in the outpouring of grief and outrage. We know that many in our community are struggling to understand how to respond to this tragedy, especially because it is a particularly devastating example of a larger trend toward exclusion, extremism and ha ..read more

It’s been 20 years since Mean Girls was released, and it’s no surprise that Hollywood was eager to capitalize on the classic with a reboot—in this case, a musical version of the same name that makes very few changes to the original. The content may be recycled, but the themes are as relevant as ever: on the film’s opening day, The New York Times published a piece on Rosalind Wiseman, whose book Queen Bees and Wannabes inspired the film(s). There, Wiseman discusses how she’s now working with adults as well, trying to repair the same social conditioning that made high school a minefield for ..read more

We’re often told to “think globally; act locally,” but aphorisms aren’t big on the details. If your New Year’s resolution involves giving back to the community but you’re wondering how you and your company can do so, we know of two companies with two great ways to get started. MUFG and The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC), along with the ELC Charitable Foundation, partnered with Girls Leadership and with local schools in ways that made sense to their unique skill sets, resulting in two distinct ways of making a lasting difference.    Supporting Youth  Women may be closing the gender ..read more

Early last year, a group of students approached the administration at Latitude High School with a request: would they please cancel class? Oh, and not just the students’ own classes—everyone’s classes. For a whole day.  The administration agreed.  They were glad to—because these students were representatives from the Girls Leadership Empower Club, and along with the Black Students Union and the Queer Gender Sexuality Association, they had a full day of education planned to replace the day’s classes. Instead of chemistry and history, the whole school would be able to take part in lear ..read more

This is a tale of two Girls Leaderships. You may know that ours began in 2008 and is a national organization headquartered in Oakland, CA, but another was born—or rather, re-born—just outside of Worcester, MA only a few years ago. Isabella Gentleman took a job at Eagle Hill in 2019. Eagle Hill is a co-ed boarding school that provides an individualized education for students with diverse learning profiles, including those who have dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. Many have experienced difficulty and even trauma from previous educational experiences where their needs were not met. Wh ..read more

Lauren Fuller is the kind of person who doesn’t waste time on problems when she could be creating solutions. As Executive Director of Sheriff Police Athletic League (PAL), a service organization focused on youth academics and athletics, Fuller was kind enough to speak with Girls Leadership about how attending our training was a part of her game plan. She shared how utilizing our brave spaces model and focusing on challenges that girls and gender-expansive youth specifically were experiencing made an impact on her whole organization and community. The town of Pontiac, MI sits about 20 miles nor ..read more

Together with the WNBA, Girls Leadership is celebrating International Day of the Girl by launching three free Belonging in Basketball resources through the Her Time To Play initiative:  Certification: Training to equip coaches with activities, coaching tips, and mindsets to create a strong foundation of wellbeing, belonging and community for their teams.  Curriculum: 36 lessons across 3 age groups (7-9, 10-12, 13-17) designed to teach players to be brave, make mistakes, and lead; created in partnership with Girls Leadership.  Wellness Check-Ins: 23 quick activities to build the ..read more

Most teachers in the US are white (about 80%). Most students are Black, Indigenous, or students of color (about 54%). Given this growing difference between the lived experiences of teachers and their students, it’s no surprise that culturally responsive teaching is essential to creating community and success in the classroom.  What does it mean to be culturally responsive? It’s a tall order, which includes learning about and responding to cultural variables that each individual brings to interactions. If you’re a teacher, you could have 30 young people per class to get to know, or about 1 ..read more

Our next Girl* and Grownup workshops are right around the corner, and Girls Leadership staff have been hard at work to tailor this year’s program to the evolving needs of participants of every age and ability. To lead this intergenerational approach, Girls Leadership recently hired a Family Program Director,  Laureina Toler-Farmer, or Beina, who is developing our content with an eye to bravery, resilience, and inclusion. Beina has spent more than a decade in education, teaching at the elementary, middle, and high school levels as well as in teacher development. This has given her insight ..read more