In 2011, President Obama challenged the nations of the world to take action to encourage women’s public leadership. In response, a dozen nations, along with the U.S., have joined in the global Equal Futures Partnership launched by Secretary Clinton in 2012, with each country making plans to encourage women to participate fully in public life and to lead and benefit from inclusive economic growth. Teach a Girl to Lead™ is a new initiative from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) to support and expand civic learning and engagement opportunities for girls and young women.
The Teach a Girl to Lead™ campaign will re-envision what public leaders look like, inspire girls and young women to follow in their footsteps, and make women’s political leadership visible to America’s youth. This campaign will:
- Call upon the current crop of women public leaders to reach back and “lift as you climb” through participation in an online speakers’ bureau, the ”Leaders Lineup,” a searchable online database listing current and former elected and appointed women who agree to be available to educate young people about women’s public leadership.
- Influence the influencers, working with teachers, parents, community leaders, and youth-serving organizations to highlight public service and depict girls and women as leaders throughout their programs, not just as an occasional theme.
- Deploy resources from a “Teaching Toolbox” in and beyond schools in a variety of forms: lesson plans, posters, videos, extracurricular activities, and other materials to help influencers do their part.
- Drive a national conversation – via traditional and new media – that calls attention to the dearth of women public leaders and the urgency of teaching a broader vision of leadership.
- Create strategic partnerships with groups working across a range of fields and communities to develop and share content that helps girls and young women recognize themselves among the next generation of public leaders.
Where these tools are employed, young people – both boys and girls – will learn from an early age that public leaders can look like their mothers, aunts and grandmothers. Ideally, the knowledge, confidence and motivation that girls and young women develop will mean that any one of them can look in the mirror and see a leader.
The new Teach a Girl to Lead™ web site will be launched soon. To learn more, contact: Jean Sinzdak at 732-932-9384 ext. 260 or sinzdak@eagleton.rutgers.edu.