By. David Ehle and Tania Rivera
Since 2021 in El Salvador, Plan International has been fostering the development of a National Girls’ Movement (NGM). Titled Together for Change and Gender Justice, and made up of about 80 adolescent girls and young women to lead advocacy and influencing campaigns for gender equality at the local, regional and national levels. The Movement is made up of girls who have participated in a variety of programs implemented by Plan. Participants are girls who showed strong leadership potential and chose to join the NGM to work toward a more equitable society.
Girls who participate in the NGM go through a training on gender equality and advocacy principles, known as the School for Gender-Transformative Political Leadership. Through this training, the girls obtain critical life skills and confidence to speak out in defense of their rights. They also complete trained on advocacy and awareness-raising methods so that they can lead activities in their communities. Once they finish their training, the girls take over to form a completely girl-led movement, with Plan stepping to the side to provide only technical guidance and financial support.
Getting started and structure
Despite many start-up delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the girls of the NGM quickly organized themselves to create a governance structure for the movement and develop a national advocacy plan. The plan outlined the issues they wanted to address and strategies for reaching their peers, families and decision-makers with their messages. The girls divided themselves into secretariats for influencing, education and management to support the smooth functioning of the Movement, and elected representatives from each department to serve on a National Council. Department-level groups lead community-level activities, while the National Council shepherds the overall direction of the Movement and engages with the government of El Salvador, the United Nations and other key actors at the national and extra-national levels.
Within this framework, the girls have led a wide variety of advocacy and influencing activities, including radio campaigns, community dialogues, training workshops for their peers and distribution of printed materials for gender equality awareness, and have won themselves a seat at the table in discussions with the Central American Parliament, and central government of El Salvador. Girls from the movement have also taken up leadership roles within other community structures, such as school boards, local rights committees, community development associations, local religious groups, youth groups and sports teams.
“It is important that our voice, ideas and thoughts reach other people. We definitely hope this has a significant effect considering that we have touched on so many topics that are unknown in our communities because of taboos.” -Adolescent girl from Cabañas
NGM goals and activities
While the general purpose of the NGM is to fight for gender equality, it is up to the girls to decide what that means for them. This has led to programming across a vast spectrum of social issues. While some, like gender-based violence, are more obviously and directly linked to the issue of gender equality, others have a subtler (though no less important) connection, such as climate change and environmental conservation.
Examples of activities led by the girls include:
- Advocating to local school boards for comprehensive sexuality education.
- Community actions for Earth Day.
- Leading trainings for their peers on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
- Community dialogues to fight discrimination against people with disabilities.
- A virtual discussion on challenges that girls and other young people faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Community discussions on online safety.
- Participating in storytelling and creative writing workshops to raise girls’ voices; and many more.
The diversity of topics girls chose to address within the framework of gender equality shows how inequality and discrimination are felt in every aspect of their lives.
The role of boys
From the very start of the Movement, the girls asked an important question: Where are the boys? The girls made it clear that they did not want to be fighting for equality on their own, but that they wanted their male peers to be standing with them, side by side, fighting the same fight. While the NGM has remained a group exclusively for girls in order to give them a safe space to talk among themselves, a parallel group, the Human Rights Defenders, was formed to bring boys into the fray.
This group has been working alongside the NGM, echoing their messages, and serving as champions of change to model positive masculinities, breaking from traditional gender roles and machismo culture. They have led workshops to raise awareness on human rights frameworks, constitutional liberties and protections, and to disseminate the knowledge and skills that they have learned through the Champions of Change project to their peers.
“It makes me happy to know that I am raising a different kind of person than what we are used to. I hope to be a guiding person in the lives of the people around me so that they can be good boys, who do not harass, and above all that they are free because I am a free person.” -Adolescent girl speaking on how she applies what she has learned through the NGM to help raise her little brother.
The results
The girls in the NGM have done more than just raise awareness of girls’ rights. They have created a cadre of girl leaders through the development of their confidence, self-esteem, agency, sense of belonging, social and global awareness, and emotional well-being. Their determination to have a positive impact on their communities is profound. Not only will these skills continue to grow within the participating girls as they lead more campaigns and expand their networks across the country and the region, but they will spread as the girls influence their siblings, peers and community members. The girls dedication and resolve will drive the steady growth of the NGM and ensure the continuous progress toward a more equitable society.
The NGM is a driving force for change in El Salvador. While Plan continues to support the movement with financing and technical guidance, the girls have big ambitions to become a self-sufficient, independent, girl-led entity that extends throughout the country and beyond. In a world where machismo culture is pervasive and girls are taught to be quiet and stay at home, these girls are proving that they have a lot to say, and they are not going to let anyone stop them.
