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Helping girls to find their voice by Charlotte Sarre

At the start of a new year, we can ask ourselves, “Do we really speak our truth?”

For many, the transition from one year to another is the perfect time to reflect. Before stepping over the threshold of a new year, it can be good to spend time celebrating the successes of the year gone by, but also honouring the hard and painful moments.

We can reflect on all aspects of our lives: our work, the things that bring us joy, and our relationships – with our family, colleagues, friends and most importantly, ourselves. After looking back, we can think about how we want to move forward, stepping into the new year with intention and purpose.

So we can ask ourselves: How will we show up for ourselves? How will we protect our peace, hold our boundaries and speak our truth? For women in particular, speaking up can be a hard one. Although we’ve come a long way when it comes to gender inequality, most women still suffer from the collective wound inflicted by patriarchal society which often includes a fear of speaking out, a fear of using our voice.

 

I can remember when it became hard for me to use my voice. It was when I was a teenage girl. Feeling brave, I could speak up, but only to myself or the people I trusted the most. Out in the world, I would be on guard. When something happened that didn’t feel right, I often found myself socially paralysed. Heat would rise in my body, including my face, which made me wish a hole would appear into which I could disappear. I would be searching for words that wouldn’t come; and not wanting to make the other person feel uncomfortable, I’d not say anything. I’d feel uncomfortable instead, with a throat that felt as if a vice was being tightened around it.

Over time, as I replayed the situation over and over in my head, words would well up from within me and gather right underneath that vice. More and more, pressing against each other, tumbling out of my inner knowing, desperate to be screamed into the silence I had created. But the vice would stay closed.

Girls can lose their voice before they enter their teens

Growing up today is particularly hard for girls. Add to that a huge life transition like puberty and it’s easy to see how a girl, and her voice, can get lost. Interestingly, many young children don’t have issues with speaking up and asserting themselves, boy or girl. We’ve all heard toddlers say “Hey, that’s my toy!” or “I don’t like this game, let’s play this instead.” Yet, when those toddlers grow up and enter puberty, their voice is silenced. Teenagers carry the burden of countless pressures and expectations and the need to fit in makes standing up for yourself difficult. It becomes hard to say, “I don’t want to go to that party” when everyone else is going. At that age, my own self-consciousness and lack of understanding of who I was, made me doubt myself and unsure whether or not I could trust my intuition. Even when I listened to the messages my body was sending me, I simply didn’t have the vocabulary to put words to the feelings and I lost my ‘voice’.

Many women and girls struggle with speaking up. When we have safe places to practice giving attention to how we think and feel, we can experiment with speaking our truth out loud.

Charlotte is a Trainer and Accredited Girls Journeying Together Facilitator. She runs groups in South East London and you can find more details here: 

Charlotte Sarre

 

The Power of Crowdfunding

Nela knew she had to train as a Girls Journeying Together Facilitator from the moment she heard our founder Kim talking on a podcast (The Menstruality Podcast by Red School). She had been looking to create a course for girls growing up in Germany, prompted by her own daughter’s requests to make a ‘puberty course’ so that she could share her excitement about growing up with her friends. Nela, already working with and for women in Berlin, knew empowering girls was the next step for her. It was while researching content for creating this course she discovered it already existed – as Girls Journeying Together.

The stars aligned for Nela, during her research she noticed that one of our training webinars was running just 10 minutes later. She immediately registered and attended, and that was that,

“Yes you have to do it,” Nela’s inner voice told her. There were just two problems, time and money! Nela had been unwell in 2023 and had spent more time than she would have liked away from her family, now she was thinking about going away again.

“I had this big yes, do it! I was doing something that was meaningful for my power, strength and happiness and I was doing it for me as a mother, for the girls, and the world.”

Her husband and both children were so pleased that it was something lovely and were not concerned that it would be taking her away this time.

The next issue was money. Nela had been unwell and had used up all her savings. She knew this was something she had to do, so how to raise the money? The answer came in the form of a crowdfunding campaign which was incredibly successful. In just four weeks Nela raised the full amount for her training and a week later found herself on a plane from Germany to the UK to attend the first part of the programme.

So how did Nela crowdfund everything she needed to cover the cost of our training in just four weeks? I will share her top tips below. The whole process took about three months. Nela told me,

“Even if you have the money, the campaign is so worth it to build up the community.”

It seems that launching a crowdfunding campaign had a two-fold benefit. Nela found that whilst she was raising money, she was building a community of women and girls interested in her girls groups, as well as supporters of her work.

If you are unsure how crowdfunding works, it’s a simple process:

You find a platform that suits you, there are lots to choose from including Kickstarter, Crowdfunder, GoFundMe. You need to do your research to make sure their criteria is right for you and your campaign. Nela used Startnext which offered her two options – a target that you could aim for but didn’t have to meet, or a target that if you didn’t reach all the money was returned to the investors. Her intention was to use the ‘safe’ first option and top up with help from her parents or the bank if necessary, but friends persuaded her to go for the second. Hitting the target or bust approach means the pressure is on but people are keener to see you reach it. It turned out to be the right choice as supporters were cheering her on to reach that target to do the training. Nela made a pitch video for the campaign as well as gathering and making ‘goodies’ to give to supporters who invested.

For supporters, there were also two options – either to just give a donation or to invest in return for something. Nela offered virtual high fives for five Euros as her cheap offering but then as the sums went up supporters were given physical items in return. These ranged from homemade mother-and-daughter bracelets, an e-book she had written (the most popular option), up to buying your daughter or another girl her place on Girls Journeying Together in advance. In this way she already had two girls booked onto her first group for girls who might otherwise not be able to attend. Nela launched her campaign with a personal video on social media, and a countdown, and off it went…

Nela is now entering the second year of the training, and launching her first Girls Journeying Together group this spring. We will keep you posted on her journey.

In the meantime, here are Nela’s top tips for launching a crowdfunding campaign.

  • build in enough preparation time; Nela had two months and says preparation is the most important thing
  • have great photos to use
  • create a pitch video that really shows you, your face, your why, and your passion
  • answer all potential questions: Where is the money going? What is the plan? What is the profit for the world? Give them the bigger picture
  • four weeks is the perfect time for a campaign to run, it’s a whole cycle
  • have goodies ready to send out when your campaign is completed
  • text/message and talk to everyone you know – the community around you and all of their communities “The bigger circle around you.”
  • use magazines, podcasts
  • ask people to spread the campaign

Visit Nela’s finished campaign:

https://www.startnext.com/die-maedchen-bande

If one woman can raise everything needed to train with us, so could you!

Why not come along to our training taster day in London on February 3rd. For just £65 you can experience our incredible training and see why it inspires such commitment and passion from so many women.

For more details and information about bursary places please email info@ritesforgirls.com or visit the booking page: https://forms.gle/cppmqMp75Mi9G8Wb7