Resourcing Girls and Young FEminists

In 2023, I led a learning and documentation process for Purposeful, reflecting on the power and politics of transnational convenings and advocacy spaces. We drew on past learning dialogues with grantees as well as interviews with RESURJ, Community Care Collective, Nala Feminist Collective, MADRE, ATHENA Network and CHEVS.

In 2022, I led the curation and creation of the Tool Gallery for Mosaics and Mirrors, a new research report  on feminist co-leadership from Closer Than You Think. This was a gorgeously creative process, which I was honoured to be part of. 

These tools accompany the research co-authored by Ruby Johnson and Devi Leiper O'Malley and follows the ‘Emerging’, ‘Nurturing’ and ‘Evolving’ phases of co-leadership. 

It is inspired and informed by many other sources and we hope for it to be a live list that grows and evolves as others add to it.

Together with Olaoluwa Abagun, I co-led a process to develop a learning report for the 2023 West Africa Girls' Summit and, in participation with adolescent, young people, partners and staff, developed a documentation plan for the 2024 summit. This included tailoring the report for partners, children and funders.

In 2018, I led the design of Plan’s first ever youth collective action strategy, Powering the Movement. I designed and managed the design process with young people and staff and then built a team to implement the strategy across the organisation. We engaged over 220 youth activists in 43 countries. In 2021, I managed the mid-term participatory evaluation process with a youth-led consultancy group, the Ubuntu Team.

  In 2016, I was a supporting editor for Plan UK’s report: State of Girls’ Rights in the UK. The research was ground-breaking as the first ever of its kind conducted on girls' lives in the UK and was used tin advocacy efforts to realise girls' rights with the UK government.

The  Girl Declaration was a call to action to embed girls’ rights in the Sustainable Development Goals. It was created in partnership with 25 development organisations, and in consultation with more than 500 girls in 14 countries, across four continents. I project coordinated the initiative and led on girl-centred advocacy, supporting girls to influence for policy change at the Addis Abba Financing Conference, UN General Assembly and the Commission on the Status of Women. 

In 2022, I led a research team of four to develop: Weaving a Collective Tapestry: A Funder's Toolkit on Child and Youth Participation in participation with girls and young people. I co-authored this toolkit with Ruby Johnson and a research team with Olaoluwa Abagun and Trimita Chakma. The research and toolkit were commissioned by Elevate Children Funders' Group.

In 2021, I led a process to commission a discussion paper on compensation to young people for their time and expertise: Maximising Benefits: A Recommended Framework for Volunteerism and Compensation for Young People. The guidance was developed by a team of consultants in collaboration with CIVICUS and Restless Development. It includes analysis of the problem and recommendations for a compensation and volunteering policy including considerations such as contextualisation, safeguarding and labour laws.

I provided strategic advice to UN Foundation on this intergenerational advocacy initiative to build trust and more meaningful collaborations during the Generation Equality process through workshops in New York, Rwanda and Mexico. A summary of the pilot workshop can be found here. 

Girls Get Equal is a 5 year global campaign demanding power, freedom and representation for girls and young women.  It is being implemented in over 60 countries.  At Plan, I co-led the youth engagement and mobilisation component, which included overseeing  the youth-centred development of the Girls Get Equal Youth Campaigns Toolkit and management of the campaign's advisory group of 25 girls and young people. 

 I oversaw the development of this digital platform for this practical guide on self-organisation, Diverse and Powerful Girls. It was developed with girls and young feminists in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Website development by Brillo Connetz. Website design by Meghan Lazier

The Girls Advocacy Alliance is a 5 year programme that ran in 10 countries in Asia and Africa and worked to tackle gender based violence and economic exclusion through strategic advocacy and youth network building. I managed the youth advocacy component for the programme, overseeing programme implementation and leading on meaningful girl advocacy at the international level. I developed youth advocacy tools, led training workshops and contributed to the outcome harvesting process. As the programme grew, I hired and managed a youth advocacy lead. In 2020, I co-led the evaluation of the programme.