alumni
GFC Alumni
Girls For A Change alumni are making their mark as influential leaders and social change agents. Our 5,000+ GFC alumni have won notable awards,been appointed to powerful leadership positions and have achieved outstanding accomplishments since completing our program.
They are:
Professional Business Women of California scholarship award winners. Bank of America Youth community leader award recipients. GFC National Board members. The recipients of $50,000+ in scholarships for college in alignment with their participation on GFC. Political interns. Business interns. Youth Creating Change award recipients. Non-profit founders. Global Girl Action Team founders. Stanford summer political training students. Camp Start Up full scholarship recipients. NBC 11 community relations department interns. USAID workers. Latina Peace Officers Association award recipients. Young women activist group founder on a college campus. North Western Journalism Association interns. NASA interns. Youth Service Award winners. Northern California Youth Grant Makers Association members. Nonviolence activists who've worked with the Chavez, Gandhi and King families as part of the annual Carry the Vision conference...
Are you a GFC Girl Alum?
We want to hear how you're changing the world--email us or COMMENT below!
From Gang Prevention to College
By Mayra, GFC Alum
I have been involved with Girls For a Change for almost four years now. I first heard about it at the Girls For A Change Summit that my friends and I attended. I was very excited to see so many other girls who shared a common goal; to make a change in our communities. To see that so many leaders of our community believed in our potential was very inspiring. My friends and I decided to continue participating with Girls For a Change, to build a project that would help our community. The five of us and our coaches, Melissa and Amy, were able to reach our goal. We decided to create a project to prevent kids from joining a gang so early-on in life. We named this project GP6 (Gang Prevention for 6th Graders).
Aline
Before GFC, I was missing school a lot. I’m from a family of nine and I’m like the good one. I thought I could get away with it and nobody really checked. I think I was being plain young and not thinking. I wasn’t finding anything there for me. And then my GPA was real low. I’m from Burundi in Africa and my parents are from the two tribes that were fighting. So coming from there to here and acting all Americanized was hard. My family has been through hell, I’ve seen war and I’ve been through it. I was so closed off and I wouldn’t talk to nobody about nothing. Growing up in Africa and living in the refugee camp and not having food—it was a struggle. Still coming here, I realized, "I’m still messing up." I felt like I had no reason to go to school, I wasn’t motivated.
Jennifer
Before GFC I was shy and I didn’t have much self-confidence, I always hid in the corner. I thought everyone was smarter than me. After the first three weeks of GFC I started coming out of my little shell and participating in class more and everyone noticed. Now I’m the first person to raise my hand to go in front of the class to give a speech. In GFC they made me realize that everyone is equal and no one is better than anyone else.
Anita
Anita (pictured with the Polish President) is a sophomore at Claremont McKenna College studying International Relations, with a concentration in Eastern Europe. She became involved in politics through Girls For A Change when she met her first politician, Anna Eshoo, at an event. In addition, she attended several political conferences representing GFC and obtained internships with Congresswoman Linda LeZotte and State Senator John Vaconcellos. This political experience allowed her to be selected for a semester internship in Washington, D.C. with USAID.
Rita
Rita is a second-year student at the University of California, Riverside pursuing a major in Philosophy and a minor in Asian Studies. She is part of the university’s upper division honors program. With the help of faculty advisors, she is preparing a thesis that discusses Herman Melville and the Chinese philosophy of Chuang-tzu.
Terralyn
Terralynn has been involved in GFC for three years. Terralynn's team has completed several social change projects including: a violence prevention campaign, educating themselves and then their community about pregnancy prevention, and creating self-esteem workshops for students on campus.
