Extracurricular programs that empower and inspire girls
Girl Up was founded in 2010 by the UN Foundation as an initiative to help support UN agencies that focus on adolescent girls. With over 4000 clubs in 125 countries (and all 50 US States), Girl Up’s leadership development programs guides girls along their journey from leader to changemaker. Through specialized programming on global gender issues and in organizing, advocacy, fundraising, and communication, Girl up helps girls access their inner power to advance the skills, rights and and opportunities of girls everywhere.
#2 Girls Leadership
Girls Leadership teaches girls to exercise the power of their voice through programs grounded in social emotional learning. They offer programs for girls K-12, as well as family workshops and professional development for educators. Through a unique 3-step integrated approach, they teach social & emotional skills to over 150,000 girls in the United States every year.
#3 Girl Scouts
Girl Scouts takes the potential of girls, combines it with robust skill-building programming, and adds caring adult mentors and strong female role models. Everything a Girl Scout does centers around STEM, the outdoors, development of life skills, and entrepreneurship, and is designed to meet her where she is now and to grow along with her. Whether she’s building a robotic arm, coding her first app, building a shelter in the backcountry, or packing for her first hike, a Girl Scout has an exciting array of choices to suit her interests at every age.
Girl Scouts is the largest leadership organization for women in the world, and for good reason! The majority of women elected to congress in the United States are Girl Scouts alumni, 58% in 2018 alone.
#4 Black Girls Code
Black Girls CODE is devoted to showing the world that black girls can code, and do so much more. By reaching out to the community through workshops and after school programs, Black Girls CODE introduces computer coding lessons to young girls from underrepresented communities in programming languages such as Scratch or Ruby on Rails. Black Girls CODE has set out to prove to the world that girls of every color have the skills to become the programmers of tomorrow. By promoting classes and programs we hope to grow the number of women of color working in technology and give underprivileged girls a chance to become the masters of their technological worlds.
#5 Girlstart
Girlstart’s mission is to increase girls’ interest and engagement in STEM through innovative, nationally-recognized informal STEM education programs. Girlstart aspires to be the national leader in designing and implementing innovative, high quality informal STEM education programs that inspire girls to transform our world. Through its comprehensive programming, Girlstart provides a year-round, intensive suite of STEM education programs for K-12 girls. Girlstart’s core programs foster STEM skills development, an understanding of the importance of STEM as a way to solve the world’s major problems, as well as an interest in STEM electives, majors, and careers.
