Global Foundation For Girls has been in development since 2010 but officially launched in 2020. Our work has always focused on supporting gender-diverse people, birthing persons, and girls of color by providing local organizers with resources, capacity building, and conventions.

The idea for the organization came from social work students and community members who felt passionately about the issues facing girls, gender-fluid youth and birthing persons. They came together to understand horrific things happening to children worldwide, like kidnappings for child soldiers and youth trafficking. They rallied for the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and launched a series of community projects focused on organizing, trauma, gender-based violence, and sexual assault. In 2013 members of the advocacy group traveled to South Africa to do research and offer support around the unprecedented occurrences of infant rape; at the time, the country had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases in the world. 

As they began working with more countries, they found that many issues around child sex abuse were not openly spoken about or tackled in the public. In addition, organizations on the ground, often BIPOC led, were fighting for change without the infrastructure or resources in place to make a deeper impact.

In addition to children in crisis, infant and maternal mortality was at an all time high, including in the United States with Black mothers and infants. They realized that there was more work to do to engage various community members on projects related to children and birthing people. These projects would later fall under the banner of GFG. Using a macro approach to provide capacity building and support focused on social-justice-based solutions to issues identified by the country in question, they campaigned in poor villages and orphanages, touring shanties, meeting medical professionals and impacted residents at child response clinics. 

Despite significant strides, they found that programs for girls and gender-diverse youth in crisis were still underfunded, understaffed, and poorly coordinated with other response teams. These issues were more pronounced in rural areas, where survivors in need of extensive recovery had few options if any. In addition, after surveying various  penal codes and determining points of contention between the law and convicted perpetrators, they were inspired to take more action to support community groups on the ground leading the charge.

South Africa and the United States became the first two countries to use GFG’s Global Girls Network Model which forms grassroot community networks on the ground led by Community and Youth Leaders and where GFG supports the infrastructure, capacity building and connection between the networks to build stronger support for groups on the ground fighting for change.  

In 2017, the founding board, with support from generous seed donors, brought on Tammea Tyler as the first President and CEO to develop out, launch and sustain the company. With her background in operations, start-ups, and community health, she was tasked with moving the organization from concept and community projects to a fully realized foundation.

In 2020, communities of color found themselves tackling social unrest and a disproportionate number of Covid-19 cases. In addition, with the death of Breonna Taylor, a young 26 year old Black female, at the hands of white police officers, the group felt called to mobilize and formally register Global Foundation for Girls that same year.

On June 16, 2020, — International Day of the African Child —– Global Foundation for Girls was officially founded.

Global Foundation for Girls is a youth led intermediary that brings the three core topics of Gender Based Violence, Birth Justice and Children in crisis under one organization. We also do extensive work around Racial, Gender and Family Justice.  While other gender organizations focus more on adult women, GFG focuses on girls and gender fluid youth.  In times of crisis, GFG asks “what about the children?” We know from experience that disaster, crisis, and emergency responses often overlook society’s youngest survivors. Children have different needs, and require a different response to their healing than that of their adult family members. It was decided that Global Foundation for Girls would launch and be more formally developed to fill the void in providing global services, particularly to organizations that support gender-diverse youth, birthing persons and girls of color. We focus our work on Gender based violence, Birth & Reproductive Justice, and Children in Crisis.

Global Foundation for Girls is a philanthropic organization focused on resource distribution, advocacy, and network building for local organizations working with gender-diverse youth, girls of color, birthing persons, and children in crisis all over the world. With over ten years in the making, we are ready to get to work!