across the United States. They’ve gone to southern California, Washington D.C., and are looking at doing a southern U.S.
tour. This program allows girls to see their options after high school and gives them resources to work towards their goals.
Another program Girls Inc. offers, Media Literacy. It focuses on teaching girls how to objectively look at the media and
how it portrays women. This is a program for all girls kindergarten through 12th grade, but programs are broken up into
age groups to focus on subjects appropriate for their age range. At De Anza high school, about 20 students signed up at
a table for a Media Literacy class with a Girls Inc. representative. The class started with introductions, which included
how each student’s day was going and any exciting plans the student may have had. Then they jumped into how media
portrays women, how they want the media to portray women, how they can advocate for that change, and how students
can use media to portray themselves. They spent time deconstructing magazine and TV advertisements based on message,
audience, stereotypes, images, and more. The Girls Inc. representative created a space where the students were free to
discuss any topic, no matter how sensitive, and gave them a fresh perspective on how to look at the media.
Right now, the representatives from Girls Inc. run their programs out of local schools during the school year and in
the center during the summer. Tiffany, the executive director, says they’re trying to hold more programs at the center
throughout the school year to create a pipeline where girls finish one program and move up to the next, rather than
taking sporadic programs through their school.
Girls Inc. is focusing on making sure the programs are catered to the girls in this area, like College Bound Girls and
their new pilot program Body Positive, which focuses on teaching middle school girls to love and appreciate themselves
no matter what their size or how they look. Many of the women who work at Girls Inc. have lived in Richmond their
whole lives and some, like Tiffany, have even gone through the program. Their focus is on empowerment, sisterhood, and
making sure girls have the tools they need when they leave high school.
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