Help girls become leaders in their communities!

Empowering Girls Through Culture, Community, and Intergenerational Support

Grandmother Project (GMP) works with communities in Southern Senegal to strengthen the rights and well-being of women and children, with particular attention to girls. Its Change through Culture approach uses community knowledge, social relationships, and culturally respected roles to create locally owned solutions.

In many African communities, older women have traditionally been influential voices in family and community life. GMP builds on this foundation to create opportunities for girls to be heard, supported, and prepared to take an active role in shaping their communities.

From Support to Leadership

GMP brings generations together through dialogue, community activities, and leadership development. These activities help girls build relationships with grandmothers and mothers while gaining confidence to discuss issues that affect their lives.

Topics such as puberty, relationships, early pregnancy, education, and future aspirations can be difficult to discuss openly. Creating safe spaces for conversation helps girls develop knowledge, self-esteem, and the ability to make thoughtful decisions.

The objective goes beyond protecting girls from harm. It is about preparing them to participate, speak up, take responsibility, and lead.

Girls Challenging Harmful Practices

The 2025 experience in Badiara village, near the Senegal–Gambia border, shows how community dialogue can create space for change. Grandmothers, families, young people, religious leaders, and health workers came together to examine Female Genital Mutilations (FGM) and the beliefs surrounding it.

Rather than instructing participants what to think, GMP encouraged them to question assumptions and consider evidence and personal experience. This approach enabled community members to reconsider a deeply rooted practice while maintaining respect for their cultural identity.

Sharing the harmful consequences of the FGM makes the issue become a shared community responsibility. Also, it opens the ways for change for girls’ well-being, when people have opportunities to learn, reflect, and act together.

Creating Conditions for Girls to Succeed

Girls cannot become leaders if circumstances prevent them from completing their education or exercising their voice. Teenage pregnancy, child marriage, and FGM remain important obstacles in many communities.

GMP’s Girls’ Holistic Development program addresses these challenges by encouraging stronger relationships between generations. Girls receive encouragement from women they trust, while families gain better ways to communicate with adolescents.

The 2025 teenage-pregnancy study, which included 230 community members, teachers, and girls, reported increased knowledge among grandmothers and greater comfort discussing reproductive health. Girls described stronger self-confidence and decision-making power and highlighted their relationships with grandmothers as an important support in avoiding pregnancy. Mothers also reported improved communication with their daughters.

These developments create conditions in which girls can remain in school, make informed choices, and develop the confidence required to participate more fully in community life.

Giving Girls a Voice and a Role

GMP’s vision is not simply for girls to be protected; it is for them to become active participants in their own futures.

Grandmothers can provide wisdom and encouragement. Mothers can offer practical and emotional support. Fathers and community leaders can help ensure that girls’ views are respected. Schools can provide opportunities for girls to speak, take responsibility, organize activities, and practice leadership.

With this support, girls can move from being passive recipients of decisions made by others to becoming decision-makers, role models, and contributors to community development.

As one grandmother explained:

“Now, we can talk openly with our granddaughters. We guide them, we protect them, and we help them stay on the right path.”

Investing in Future Women Leaders

The progress achieved through GMP’s work demonstrates that leadership development begins with education, confidence, supportive relationships, and opportunities to participate. When girls know that their voices matter, they are better positioned to contribute to their families, schools, and communities.

Grandmother Project’s work was recognized in December 2025, when Senegal’s National Commission on Human Rightsawarded the organization one of three awards honoring organizations that promote and protect children’s rights. This recognition reinforces the importance of culturally relevant approaches that strengthen communities and create better opportunities for children.

Grandmother Project’s vision

Every girl should have the opportunity to learn, speak, participate, and lead.

When girls are educated, supported, and given a voice, they can become confident leaders who help build healthier, stronger, and more inclusive communities.