*new* 5-8-2009
Girls for Change Recruitment flyer (.doc file requires Microsoft Word or Open Office)
GIRLS FOR CHANGE SEXUAL HARASSMENT RESEARCH (.doc file requires Microsoft Word or Open Office)
(Conducted by the Center for Research on Women, University of Memphis
and Memphis Area Women's Council)
Sexual harassment is a dangerous, illegal part of girls' lives in local schools and we can find no attention being paid by school officials. With funding from The Urban Child Institute, the Women's Council and the Center for Research on Women have surveyed more than 600 girls and boys to gauge the scope and impact of that harassment at local public, private and parochial middle and high schools.
For three years, the Women's Council, CROW and the University of Memphis Women's Studies program offered girls ages 13-17 a place to talk about shared problems, learn how to articulate issues, draw on research and organize or collaborate with others to take action and make change. Their issues have been teen pregnancy and sex education; body image, self esteem and media manipulation and sexual harassment and violence.
In the fourth year, this leadership training initiative called Girls for Change will recruit a corps of teen girls to craft peer intervention programs, prevention programs and presentations that the teens will make to demand safety and enforcement of sexual harassment law by schools boards, principals and other policy makers.
We will identify 15-20 girls; invite them to commit to a series of workdays on Saturdays January through March; equip them with results from the survey, creative models and ideas from other outreach programs; engage them in their ideas for the best ways to communicate and use all this material to make change in Memphis and Shelby County.
We will include discussion and education about sexual predators and issues of statutory rape which is rarely prosecuted here, yet girls as young as 10 and 12 are delivering babies fathered by much older males.
Girls for Change 2009 is supported by a $10,000 gift from the Bornblum Foundation and a $10,000 grant from the City of Memphis.
NEXT: Music, film, the internet, op-ed columns - with guidance, the teens will determine the tools they will use. And we will seek a similar group of teen boys with which to begin a partnership for future presentations and peer programs.
The 2009 series will wrap-up with a public rally - the Girls for Change Policy Party - in April, organized by the girls.
YOUR PART: Adult volunteers are needed with expertise in legal issues around sexual harassment; multi-media and computer skills; creative and performing arts. Also needed are adult volunteers who would offer transportation to GFC sessions. Most essential now: invite great girls to apply! Spread the word and the application!
