Over the past 15 years, Global Girls Glow has equipped girls in some of the world’s most underserved areas with the skills and support to become powerful advocates and confident leaders — and the results have been extraordinary.
More than 100,000 girls across 41 countries have found the courage to question, to lead, and to create real change. Not just for themselves, but for their entire communities.
We’ve seen girls speak out about the issues affecting their lives, challenge the harmful norms that limit their potential, and advocate for themselves and others — from village meetings and local forums, all the way to the United Nations.
We have seen that when girls lead, the world changes. And today, we’re excited to announce that we’re changing our name to better reflect the bold, visionary, and dynamic leadership we see in girls every day.
Today, we are becoming Global Catalyst: Igniting girl-led change.
How We Got Here
Our work was founded on the simple, but bold belief that girls deserve equal opportunities and the right to pursue lives of their own design. Since we began our journey in 2012, we have intentionally gone where girls are most overlooked, connecting them with positive female mentors from their own community — women who look like them and have navigated the very same challenges they face in their own daily lives.
Those deep, trusting relationships have been the foundation of our impact ever since. To this day, locally-led mentorship continues to remain at the heart of our work, providing girls with the confidence, support, and sense of possibility to imagine a brighter future.
Girls around the world are leading change today. We’re proud to have a new name that better reflects their advocacy and impact.
Over time, and in close collaboration with local communities around the world, we strengthened our programming to equip girls with the skills they need to truly thrive. Our signature program, GLOW Club, was developed using the proven Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework, providing a safe space for girls to develop social-emotional skills, learn to express themselves, build lasting relationships with their peers, and begin speaking out about the issues that matter most to them.
We knew that these girls’ voices deserved to be heard, and their perspectives deserved to be included in spaces where decisions were being made. We launched and expanded Advocacy initiatives that provided local and global platforms for their ideas and lived experiences to shape the world around them, and began providing training, funding, and support for girls to turn their ideas into real-world action through the development of their very own community impact projects.
What followed has been more powerful than we ever could have imagined.
The Girls Leading Change
Our girl-led advocacy projects reach as many as 2 million people annually. That’s 2 million people beginning to see girls differently — not only as future mothers and caretakers, but as leaders, innovators, and changemakers, today.
Last year alone, 20 girl-led projects across 13 countries led to tangible, real-world change that is reshaping entire communities, and generations to come.
- In South Sudan, Alima created a project that engaged local chiefs, community members, and traditional leaders with the goal of reducing child marriages in a country where roughly 40% of girls become brides before their 18th birthday. As a direct result, three local chiefs have publicly committed to discouraging forced marriages.
- In the United States, Isabella immigrated from Venezuela with her family at 14 and quickly saw how difficult it was for Spanish-speaking students like herself to navigate a school system not designed to support them. Drawing from her own experience, she created her own educational program for ESOL students at her school, offering guidance on graduation requirements, extracurriculars, and college and career preparation. The initiative has since caught the attention of district officials, who are interested in expanding it to other schools.
- In India, Swati led a grassroots community advocacy program addressing school dropout rates for girls in urban slum communities like her own. She surveyed 50 households to identify out-of-school girls, organized a community rally that drew 62 attendees, and successfully re-enrolled one girl in her community in school. The re-enrollment process is currently underway for four other girls.
- In Paraguay, girls organized a city-wide march to raise awareness about issues facing women and girls in their community, including gender-based violence and education inequality. As a result, 87.9% of community members gained a clearer understanding of girls’ rights, and 95.2% of parents reflected on their role in their child’s education.
Beyond formal projects, girls are using their voices to challenge norms, shift mindsets, and expand what their families and communities believe is possible for girls.
In Malawi, one girl’s determination to pursue her passion led to her becoming the first and only girl on her community’s volleyball team.
And In Andhra Pradesh, India, after just one year of GLOW Club, our Monitoring and Evaluation team found that parental support for their daughter’s higher education rose from 74% to 94% – providing measurable proof that girls are reshaping their families’ expectations for what they can achieve.
All of these extraordinary stories have led us to one powerful, undeniable truth: Girls are catalysts of change. And every person who believes and invests in their potential is a catalyst, too.
What Comes Next
As we celebrate 15 years of impact and more than 100,000 girls served, we have never been more certain that our work is changing lives and transforming entire communities — or more proud to stand beside adolescent girls at a time when so much of the world is leaving them behind.
We know that investing in girls is the greatest investment we can make in our future. And as we enter this exciting new chapter in our organizational history, we are more committed than ever to igniting girl-led change worldwide.
This year, we’re expanding our U.S. programs, drawing on learnings from our pilot program to shift to a girl-led, project based model that will result in the implementation of community-impact projects nationwide. We’re also strengthening our Global Advocacy programs, providing more funding and opportunities for local, girl-led impact projects like those described above.
We know that investing in girls is the greatest investment we can make in our future. And as we enter this exciting new chapter in our organizational history, we are more committed than ever to igniting girl-led change worldwide.
Our mission, leadership, and financial structure remain unchanged — including our model that ensures 100% of donations directly support opportunities for girls worldwide. All that’s changing is our name and branding: a bolder, more powerful expression of the growing movement — and the accelerating impact — girls are already leading around the world.
A movement with impact. A force with momentum. Igniting girl-led change. This is Global Catalyst.
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Interested in learning more about the change we’re igniting? Check out: Their Voices, Their Dreams: Two Stories of Girls’ Education in Pakistan.
Global Catalyst mentors girls around the world to become powerful advocates and confident leaders. Our signature program, GLOW Club, connects girls in some of the world’s most underserved areas with trusted local mentors and a safe space to express themselves as they develop their agency, find their voice, and build their power. Since our founding, we’ve ignited the power of more than 100,000 girls, sparking a growing movement of youth-led change that is transforming communities — and the world — for the better.
