India
Girls Helping Girls
GFC Participant brings GFC to India with her Non-Profit
Sejal Hathi, a Girl Action Team member, Girl Steering Committee member and GFC National Girl Board member, founded her own non profit, Girls Helping Girls. GHG is an international nonprofit organization that empowers all girls to transform their world by mobilizing them to engage in cultural exchange, gain a global education, and create and lead social change.
In August 2008, as a special project of its Fund-for-Respect initiative, which provides a holistic education to sex-trafficking victims, GHG traveled to India to build a library and hold two Peacebuilding Summits for the girls of New Light India and Apne Aap Women Worldwide, organizations that work to educate the daughters of
female commercial sex workers and sex-trafficking victims, respectively. In addition to teaching the girls about global issues and enabling their English-language development, GHG staff will be providing the girls vocational training, self-esteem building, and micro finance and business skills, and in partnership with Girls for A Change will be implementing a special two-day social change training workshop to empower the girls to transcend their condition. Using the skills that they have developed, the girls will in teams devise social change business plans to raise money for their education. Through local organizations in India, the GHG volunteers worked with girls on empowerment activities and GFC's 7 Steps to Change Your World. The girls focused their change on building skills to improve their personal lives. Local volunteers translated GFC materials for the girls. One of the girls reported to the GHG volunteers, "You taught me I can make a difference. I'm a change maker and I have the ability to stand up."
