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Girls For A Change Receives Grant to Fund Academic Social Change Program in Phoenix, Arizona

Posted on: Tuesday, 1 May 2007, 09:00 CDT

Girls For A Change (GFC), a leading non-profit organization for urban youth, today announced they received a $50,000 grant on a 6-month term, awarded through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, to help spearhead and fund a new academic social change program for middle and high schools of low socioeconomic status throughout communities in Maricopa County, AZ. This grant will provide teenage girls with the opportunity to become social change agents working towards improving their communities through social change projects.

The teenage girls in Maricopa recognize the problems and challenges they face in their everyday lives, such as drugs, teenage pregnancy, gangs and lack of educational programs. These girls have few, if any, positive role models in their lives, yet aspire to pave the way to change and shape their future and other girls around them to become successful young women. Just over two years ago, Girls For A Change launched the Phoenix site to provide coaches and mentors to girls. The heart and soul of GFC's mission is to help these teenage girls to build and maintain their self-esteem by becoming social change agents and leaders in a variety of initiatives that solve the problems they face. Ultimately, these girls will go on to carry out leadership roles in many other areas of their lives.

"We are thrilled with the financial support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. With this generous grant, our Phoenix site will now have the resources making it possible for teenage girls to have a brighter future by supporting the value of girls developing their voice, ability, and problem solving capacity to realize their full potential," said Whitney Smith, Co-CEO, Girls For A Change. "The opportunity to practice through creating social change will enable these girls to pursue a brighter future. Our future generation will benefit greatly as these fine young women go on to serve as positive role models to females throughout the nation."

About W.K. Kellogg Foundation

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 "to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations." To achieve the greatest impact, the Foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These include: health; food systems and rural development; youth and education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these areas, attention is given to exploring learning opportunities in leadership; information and communication technology; capitalizing on diversity; and social and economic community development.

Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South African, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.

For further information, please visit the Foundation's Web site at www.wkkf.org. This site offers: in-depth information about the Foundation's programming interests; information on the Foundation's grant application process; a database of current grant recipients; and access to publications which report on Foundation-funded projects.

About Girls For A Change

Girls For A Change (GFC), a non-profit organization, catalyzes professional women to support urban middle and high school girls to become social change makers and innovators, by empowering them to design, lead, fund and implement social change projects that tackle problems they face in their neighborhoods. GFC provides the tools, resources and support girls need to move from being spectators to being leaders. To learn more about the organization please visit: http://www.girlsforachange.org/ or http://www.hercity.org/.

Source: Business Wire

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