GIF Projects—Girls' Firsts

GIF holds a series of projects and forums for girls to learn about policies that affect their lives, to gain skills, and to develop cross-cultural relationships with girls around the world who are all working to improve the lives of girls.

2006 International Girls Summit: In July 2006, GIF hosted the first-ever International Girls Summit! Teams of girls from around the world came to St. Paul, Minnesota to address global issues affecting girls and women. During the Summit, the girls participating in skill building workshops, shared ideas of how to take action, polished the action plans that they implement in their communities, and shared their cultures with one another.

GIF's Past Projects: A History of Girls’ Firsts
* GIF was created by a group of girls and women associated with New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams, to bring girls to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in 1995. As the largest all-girl delegation, 13 GIF girls, ages 10-17, participated in every aspect of the United Nations Conference and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Forum. At the conference GIF presented and formulated "A Girls Agenda".

* In 1998, 15 girls from across the United States came to Seneca Falls, New York, to participate in the 150th Anniversary Celebration of the first National Women’s Rights Convention, and to draft a Girls Declaration of Sentiments – a girls’ bill of rights modeled after the original Women’s Declaration of Sentiments. Crafted with input from hundreds of girls through surveys and forums, the Girls Declaration of Sentiments was presented at the convention’s closing ceremonies and entered into the Congressional Record. At that confernece, we developed a Girls' Declaration of Sentiments.

* In 2000, ten girls attended the Beijing +5 United Nations special session assessing world progress on the goals of the Platform for Action adopted in Beijing in 1995. While there, the girls began planning for the 2006 International Girls Summit.

Links of Interest
New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams

United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China

Seneca Falls National Park & History
The original Women’s Declaration of Sentiments

Beijing +5 United Nations special session to assess world progress on the goals of the Platform for Action adopted in Beijing in 1995