Empowering Girls: The Impact of Grassroots Girl-Led Activism from Local to Global

Grassroots girl-led activism is more than just a concept—it's a transformative approach that places girls at the forefront of change in their communities. For more than a decade, Msichana Empowerment Kuria has been led by the unique perspectives, experiences, and voices of girls, affirming them as capable leaders in driving sustained change for their bodily autonomy, health, and education outcomes, as well as economic opportunities.

This blog marks the beginning of a series where we'll delve into our experiences of being a girls' and young women-led grassroots organisation, sharing insights, lessons learned, and exciting projects. Here, we share our experience on girl-led activism, reflecting on our participation in the She's the First Side event, "Girl-Led Activism: How to Get it Right," at UN CSW 68 and giving tips on how to support #grassroots #girl-led activism.

For more than a decade, our work has been grounded in girls' leadership, with the belief that we cannot talk about girls without girls leading the conversations at the table. Therefore, right from the start, starting with little certainty (as we were girls ourselves), minimal resources, and gathering wherever we felt safe, we collaborated with girls to establish several key aspects.

Firstly, it was to establish a structure that deeply resonated with the girls. Msichana Empowerment Kuria, after various iterations over 4 years we officially registered as a community-based organization in 2015. This meant we continued to be proximate leaders and centred within the girls' communities. Secondly, was to put in place a decision-making framework, we had a girls' steering committee, now a girls’ council, that provides leadership to the organization. At the time of our founding,- the average of our girls was 10 years old.

Thirdly, programming around what resonated with girls' realities. For example, in March of 2017, we co-organized the first-ever girl-led march to end Female Genital Mutilation in the Kuria community, with nearly 1,000 girls in Kuria. We walked, sang, danced, screamed, and cried. The culmination of the march was a community gathering where girls, for the very first time, presented their demands. Following this march later in 2017, we co-created the NAWEZA project- meaning ‘I can’, and later got financial backing from FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund, to build girls' activism, leadership, and life skills.

The March 2017,girl-led match to end FGM

The NAWEZA Project utilised girl-led advocacy and self-affirmation skills to strengthen girls' voices and agency to end child marriage and female genital mutilation. In 2021, we published our report, How Girl-centred Design is Helping Shift Social Norms in Kuria to End FGM, drawing lessons from this 5-year girls-led and centred programming. The report describes how the girl-centred design of the NAWEZA project focuses on involving girls (8–18 years old) in all aspects of programming, from ideation to decision-making, and how this enabled them to create an environment that was both safe and empowering for girls to lead their activism.

All of the experiences shared above have been instrumental in shaping our experience of grassroots girl-led activism, which we got the opportunity to share in March 2024 in New York, during the She's the First Side Event, "Girl-Led Activism: How to Get it Right," at the UN CSW 68. Where we shared insights into how girl-led activism fosters girls' sense of ownership and agency, enabling them to advocate for the ending of violence against girls, improved health and educational outcomes, and economic opportunities for girls.

In conclusion, grassroots girl-led activism is about more than just addressing immediate issues—it's about empowering girls to shape their futures and lead with confidence. We've learned invaluable lessons along the way, and we have several tips on how to do that: Tip one, LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN to girls; no one says this better than Loveness Mudzuru, tip two is to resource girls' groups; FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund gave us a lifeline; tip three is to be patient. It has taken us over a decade of supporting girls every single day through their various stages of growth to see change happen.

Stay tuned for our next blog, where we'll delve deeper into our journey and share more insights from our work.