NGO - Girl Up

    Girl Up is a branch of the United Nations Foundation, founded in 2010 and aiming to create programs and support to girls with the UN all over the world. When it started, it was only a fundraiser for campaigns, but the movement grew and became global. In 2025 Girl Up became part of the Global Fund for Children. 

    The goal of Girl Up is to bring equality for women and empower their existence. They act especially in providing Education, Health and also creating Leadership, Knowledge against violence and sharing opportunities in areas that women are a minority, like STEM. The way Girl Up carries its aims is through developing leaders in many parts of the world, normally girls at a young age. This girls reunite in clubs, sharing information, training other girls to advocate for the causes, organizing campaigns and events and even influencing political choices. 

    The Girl Up initiative is present in more than 150 countries, coordinating globally but acting locally. The local groups often get together with each other to pursue national change. Just like a Girl Up in Rio de Janeiro (Girl Up Elza Soares, which I was part of) creating a law to provide free feminine products in public schools in the state, and after that, joining Girl Ups in other Brazilian States, conquering the approval of this law to the whole country, even the most distant areas. 

    To become a member of a Girl Up you will normally be a young person that wants to fight for the women rights, and mostly of them are girls, but boys are welcome to help with the struggle. They organize in clubs, formed in schools or local communities. Their members are from all continents in the world. 

    To funding their clubs, Girl Up works through donations, partnerships like Disney and malls, foundations and largely by fundraising campaigns. They also received some investment from the Global Fund for Children. However, when talking about real action, Girl Up receives some criticism for not having much impact in some areas, just fundraising, and because of that its work is uneven. Even so, some clubs can be very impactful and change reality of many girls all over the world. 

 

Look at me as a baby (16 years old), and the girls in our Girl Up, raising 

feminine products on the mall that were distributed to a Indigenous Village!