Fund Emergency Housing for Girls in Barbados

During Term 3, our Girls’ Club continued to provide a consistent, safe, and supportive environment for 90 girls from 85 households. Over the quarter, the girls participated in nine weekly empowerment sessions designed to strengthen their personal development, employability, financial capability, and confidence in making informed decisions about their futures.

The programme delivered practical life and career-readiness training in financial literacy, project development, résumé writing, and interview preparation. The sessions moved beyond theory by giving participants opportunities to practise and demonstrate their new skills. Girls developed résumés, strengthened their communication skills, and prepared for real-world interviews. Approximately 25% of participants secured summer employment, demonstrating how access to practical training and supportive mentorship can translate into meaningful opportunities.

Securing summer employment represented more than a short-term achievement. It allowed girls to gain workplace experience, increase their confidence, begin building professional networks, and take important steps towards financial independence. For girls experiencing economic hardship or instability at home, these opportunities can also strengthen their sense of agency and expand their vision of what is possible for their futures.

The Girls’ Club also supported participants’ holistic development. Sessions addressing physical well-being and body awareness helped girls better understand their changing bodies, personal health, boundaries, and overall well-being. Growth-mindset activities encouraged participants to view challenges as opportunities to learn, develop resilience, and remain committed to their goals.

Meeting Girls’ Immediate Needs

We recognise that girls cannot participate fully in education, mentorship, or personal development programmes when their basic needs are unmet. During the quarter, we therefore continued to provide critical assistance to girls and their families through educational resources, food, hygiene supplies, counselling, and mentorship.

More than 50% of participating girls received educational resources to help them engage more effectively in school and learning activities. Seventy-five percent received food and hygiene support, helping to ease immediate pressure on vulnerable households while ensuring that girls had access to essential items needed for their health, dignity, and daily well-being.

Mental and emotional health also remained an important part of our intervention. Forty-five percent of the girls engaged in mental wellness counselling, giving them access to supportive spaces where they could process challenges, express their feelings, and develop healthy coping strategies. More than 95% actively received mentorship, ensuring that nearly every girl had access to a trusted adult who could provide encouragement, guidance, accountability, and consistent emotional support.

This combination of material and psychosocial assistance is especially important within the context of emergency housing. A housing crisis is rarely an isolated event; it may be connected to financial hardship, family conflict, abuse, neglect, food insecurity, or emotional distress. By responding to these interconnected needs, we help girls remain safe and supported while also reducing some of the pressures that can cause household instability to escalate into an emergency.

Expanding Leadership and Financial Capability

Beyond the Girls’ Club, more than 200 girls benefited during the quarter from other projects and learning opportunities delivered by our organisation. These included our Leadership Development Curriculum and a full-day Financial Literacy Workshop.

Through the Leadership Development Curriculum, girls were encouraged to recognise their strengths, develop their voices, make responsible decisions, and understand their capacity to influence positive change. Leadership development is an important protective tool for girls because it strengthens self-confidence, communication, problem-solving, and the ability to advocate for themselves and others.

The Financial Literacy Workshop helped participants build practical knowledge about earning, budgeting, saving, investing, and making informed financial decisions. The girls were also introduced to the Barbados Stock Exchange, expanding their understanding of investment and the ways individuals can participate in the local economy.

For many participants, this was an opportunity to explore financial concepts and institutions that may not be regularly discussed at home or in school. Giving girls access to this knowledge helps to close information gaps, encourages long-term planning, and supports their journey towards economic independence. Financial capability is particularly relevant to the prevention of housing vulnerability, as girls who develop strong financial knowledge and career-readiness skills are better positioned to build stable and self-sufficient futures.

Connecting Immediate Protection to Lasting Change

Although this project focuses on providing emergency housing for girls in Barbados, our approach recognises that a safe place to stay is only one component of the support a girl may need. Girls experiencing housing instability, family crisis, abuse, neglect, or other forms of vulnerability also need access to food, hygiene supplies, education, counselling, mentorship, practical skills, and pathways towards long-term stability.

Serving girls from 85 households also allowed the programme’s benefits to extend into their families and communities. Providing essential resources helped ease pressure within vulnerable households, while mentorship, counselling, leadership development, and employability training strengthened the protective support surrounding each girl.

Together, these interventions form a wider continuum of care. Food and hygiene assistance address immediate needs. Counselling and mentorship provide emotional safety and trusted relationships. Educational, leadership, career-readiness, and financial-literacy programmes help girls develop the skills required to pursue stable and independent futures.

This quarter’s work contributed directly to the project’s broader goal: ensuring that girls are protected during moments of crisis while also being equipped to move beyond vulnerability. Through emergency support, consistent mentorship, and meaningful development opportunities, we are helping girls build safer, healthier, and more economically secure futures.

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