On Monday March 13th, Girls Empowerment Network held the first annual Girl Advocacy Day at the Texas State Capitol. GEN is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping any elementary through high school aged person that identifies as a girl by providing a safe space to explore the struggles or girlhood.
The organization provides programs through schools, camps, and special events, such as Girl Advocacy Day. As the Spring 2017 Development Intern for the organization I have personally witnessed the dedication every person involved with GEN feels toward the young girls that this program reaches. Girl Advocacy Day was nothing short of amazing, only thanks to the employees and volunteers that spent months organizing the event.
Starting at 9 AM girls from the ages of 12 to 23 gathered into an auditorium where a majority of the event was held. Once all the participants had arrived, the day started with an ice breaker, and a game of “this, this, or this,” which is extremely similar to the game of “rock, paper, scissors,” and a slideshow explaining the Texas Government and how women and girls can get involved by participating in protests, communicating with their representatives, etc. Other topics covered in the presentation included gender identity, teen dating violence, and human trafficking, which all related back to issues the current Texas Congress are covering in their current session. Girls not only received information from the speakers but also received a folder with facts and statistics related to each topic. With their newly learned information fresh in their mind, the girls then split up into groups to put their knowledge into practice.
The stations set up around the auditorium included a self-care station, a poster making station, a letter writing station, and an advocation station. Each group spent about 30 minutes at each station, building their skills on becoming involved in government. At the self-care station, girls learned about methods to relax and ways to take care of their mind and body since it is very hard to advocate for others when one has not first taken care of themselves. Blank posters were available to be decorated at the poster-making station. Girls could make a sign for a march or protest they wanted to participate in, or just create an inspirational poster to remind them to continue to advocate for causes they are passionate about.
At the letter writing station, girls wrote a letter to themselves that included goals they wanted to accomplish and the methods in which they would accomplish them, or they wrote a letter to their representative about a certain bill or current issue that directly affects them. And, lastly, my favorite of all the stations was the advocation station, which provided girls with information on how to direct talk to their specific representatives. A script was provided in the case that girls did not know what type of language to use with their representative, and pamphlets with information about each representative, including their stance on current bills being voted on, and their political views. Once the group agreed upon what they wanted to say to the representative they were visiting and practiced their pitch, they got to converse with a current politician in the Texas Congress.
It is amazing that young girls had the opportunity to learn and practice ways to become involved with their local government. Politics is currently an extremely hot topic among all citizens of America, including celebrities and others in the media, but a lot of Americans are not well informed about what is actually going on. With the rise of social media, fake news has also become a major problem. GEN provided the participants with true information and other resources where they could retrieve reliable facts. By being well informed at such a young age girls can build a sturdy foundation of civic engagement and opinions based on an unbiased truth that they can pass onto their peers and the next generation. I personally wish that I had Girl Advocacy Day or something similar available to me as a high schooler.
Don’t forget to check out GirlsEmpowermentNetwork.Org or check out GEN on Facebook and Twitter (@Girls_EN) if you know a young girl that would benefit from being involved the organization or if you want to find out about ways to volunteer or provide other services to GEN. The organization is currently based in the Austin and Houston areas but is hoping to expand throughout the greater Central Texas area and somebody throughout all of Texas.