The Global Girls Project began with a mother and daughter having a conversation about the differences in gender equality and how to promote women’s empowerment. This mother chose to stand up for her equality and shine light on what it means to promote women’s education for her daughter. The Global Girls Project creates a community conversation about how women lead, what it means to be a leader, and how women can incorporate this into their own lives regardless of age, culture, religious beliefs, or socio-economic status.

The Global Girls Project is focused on promoting empowerment from within. This initiative is based on sixteen core principles:

Authenticity

Accountability

Courage

Gratitude

Humility

Integrity

Purpose

Respect

Resiliency

Confidence

Advocacy

Vision

Compassion

Collaboration

Service/Stewardship

Curiosity/Passion for Learning

The goal of this project is to create a global collection of stories that not only inspire and uplift, but also encourage people to find their own voice and pass along the message to others to create the next generation of female leaders.

This message resonates with TFFT as we are trying to promote empowerment of these orphaned and vulnerable children in Tanzania through a quality education. Each of these sixteen principals is vital in the creation of our next generation of leaders, which we hope to instill in our scholars. We encourage our scholars, especially the females, that you don’t have to live up to the stereotypes of your gender; you can do whatever you want to do. TFFT works to help these students dreams come true, and initiatives such as The Global Girls Project only help shed insight into what truly matters when it come to gender equality.

Following The Global Girls Project model, we asked six of our female students to answer three questions. Each student selected one of the sixteen core principals and used that word to answer the questions. What does this principal mean to you? What role has this principal played in your own journey toward empowerment and leadership? What advice would you give your younger self or the next generation of women? The scholars selected different principals from purpose to confidence to respect to curiosity and courage. Each of these words has a completely different meaning to the scholars we interviewed, yet each of the girls had the same theme: their future.

Ndera (age 14) said purpose is “something to have to help you achieve so that maybe you can gain knowledge or anything to have a vision that will help you in life”

Joyce (age 14) thinks it is important for the next generation of women to have confidence and to believe in themselves.

Miriam (age 14) believes curiosity is vital for women. She thinks it will “help them achieve their goals and dreams to bring empowerment back to their communities.”

Monica (age 17) believes respect has played a part in her journey toward empowerment and leadership because “if you have respect for other people it will help you to be loved and respected by them.”

Nashivai (age 17) said, “if you want to be a leader, you have to have self-confidence and not be afraid of anyone.”

Helen (age 14) has a passion for learning. She believes it will help her journey toward empowerment because it will help achieve her goals. She believes it is important for girls to “go to school to learn something they don’t know or understand.”

These girls have big dreams and plans for the future. These questions helped them to verbalize what many of them already feel in their hearts. We hope that these scholars will help encourage the younger scholars to achieve their dreams and that just because they are girls it doesn’t mean that they can’t do something. We believe that gender equality is an important goal for the world. Hopefully by providing these students with a quality education, they will never let someone else tell them that they can’t do something just because of their gender. The future is important to each of these scholars and we hope that education and spreading their stories will allow them to fulfill their goals and overcome hardships.