SV girl action teams
SV Girl Action Team Projects (2009-2010)
Santa Clara County
Team 24, Downtown College Prep Alameda Campus, San Jose – Stop the Violence
The team at DCP Alameda
wanted to take a stand against violence in their community! They created a t-shirt
that educates youth about tackling the root cause of the issue, anger. The girls decided to give a presentation on
their t-shirt project at their Friday assemblies to increase awareness on how
anger leads to violence and to make students aware that they have alternative
solutions.
Team 10, Monroe Middle School, San
Jose – Animal Cruelty: Education on how to Treat Animals
The girls from Monroe are tired of seeing animal cruelty
due to the lack of education on how to treat animals! They visited a local animal shelter in order
to learn more about the issue. They then created a video on how to treat
animals in a humane manner. The girls also
arranged a school assembly to present their video and handed out fliers to
inform their fellow classmates on how to prevent the unethical treatment of
animals.
Team 25: Downtown College Prep Alviso, San Jose - Gay + Straight = Friends
The girls at DCP Alviso
wanted to help stop homophobia at their school and in their community. They felt
that by creating t-shirts with positive messages they could help other people
see there is no need to be scared of someone because they are gay. To show support to the gay, lesbian and
bisexual students at their school they wore their t-shirts and carried posters to
stand in solidarity against homophobia.
Team 12, Ocala Middle School, San Jose
– Communication Awareness Week
The girls from Team #12 want families
to get along with each other so they arranged a week at their school to educate
their peers on best practices of effective community. They designed t-shirts to wear during school
that said, “Speak Softly, Listen Loudly” and hung up posters that carried the
message, “Say what you mean” and “Speak Up”.
They hope that students feel inspired to think about their communication
styles and then share it with their families.
Team 20, Friends Outside of Santa
Clara County, San Jose – Pregnancy Prevention 101 with the Ladii Starz
Girl Action Team 20 feels that teen
girls should have education and resources in order to make informed choices
around teen pregnancy. They designed and
created a video skit that depicted realistic events and experiences of a
pregnant teen. By providing local
resources in the video, they present girls with different options in order to
empower them to choose a path that feels right to them.
Team 16, Sherman Oaks Middle School, San Jose - Just Say No!
The team from
Sherman Oaks is tired of seeing people do drugs because of peer pressure and
the effects they can have on communities and loved ones. They created t-shirts to promote their message on the importance of not succumbing to peer pressure in order to prevent others from doing drugs. The
hope that by wearing their shirts at school and in their community that people
will make smart choices and “Just Say No” to the pressure!
Team 14, KIPP Heartwood Academy, San
Jose – Bake Sale to Support the Self-Esteem Fund
The girls at KIPP Heartwood identified
eating disorders as an important issue facing teenage girls that is caused by
low self-esteem. The team wants to
remind girls that they are beautiful just how they are so they decided to get
behind the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.
They circulated flyers to promote self-confidence and their bake sale
where they raised money to donate to the Dove Self-Esteem Fund to help provide
self-esteem programs for girls.
Team 11, Sierramont Middle School, San
Jose – Project 11’s Keep Your Head Up!
Team #11 feels that bullying is a big
problem at their school and that it is caused by low-self esteem. To address the issue they decided to create a
video composed of teacher and peer interviews about experiences and the known
effects of bullying. They want to get
the word out that being proactive toward improving self-esteem can not only
make a person feel better about themselves, but can stop them from being a
bully. After final edits over the summer
they plan to show it to students at their school next year to prevent further
bullying on campus.
Team 8, Clyde Fischer Middle School, San Jose - Project BEAU_TEE-ful!
The girls on team 8 felt that gossiping had gotten out of hand at their school. They decided to do something about it by launching a human billboard campaign that tackled the root cause of loa self-esteem. With the message, "Be Uniquely You!", they want others to know that it's cool to be unique. By wearing their shirts to school they hope to reduce the gossip and spread the message that it's okay to be yourself.
Team
7, Piedmont Hills High School, San Jose – A Cleaner School and Environment Mean
a Better Future!
The girls of Piedmont Hills saw that amount
of litter on campus was increasing this year.
By using the school website and reaching out to various clubs to plan
competitions, they hope to ignite school pride to help spread the message that
a clean campus is a beginning step to a better future. They worked with school staff in order to
incorporate their project as a permanent part of school spirit movement.
Team 6, Leadership Public Schools San
Jose, San Jose – Self Esteem Video
The LPS San Jose Team felt that teen pregnancy is a
problem for girls in their community.
They made a video and posted it online to inform girls on ways to
improve their self-esteem in order to lower the rate of teen pregnancies. To help them spread the word the team also
made bracelets to hand out to girls as a reminder to have high self-esteem and
to feel good about themselves. Watch the video!
Team 15, August Boeger Middle School,
San Jose – DDD: Don’t Do Drugs!
Team #15
determined that emotional problems were the main cause of people doing
drugs. They developed a poster campaign
that bring awareness to their issue and highlight other solutions to emotional
problems instead of doing drugs. The girls coordinated with teachers to present
their posters to their peers in classrooms before displaying them for their entire
school community.
Team 5, Fremont High School, Sunnyvale
– Money, spend wisely!
The girls from Fremont High want to
bring money management awareness to their community. They feel that the
mismanagement of money can lead to other issues like family fights, anger and
stress. In order to prevent other issues caused by financial troubles they made
informational brochures on best budget practices. The team worked with a GFC volunteer from
Technology Credit Union in order to research the needed information. They handed out these brochures to 100 people
in front of the Sunnyvale Library to encourage smart spending and saving
amongst their community members.
San Mateo County
Team 21, Menlo Park: Boys and Girls
Club, Menlo Park - Go Beyond It
The girls at Menlo Park
Boys and Girls Club felt that disagreements and misunderstandings are the main
reasons why people choose to use violence. The team designed t-shirts
expressing their slogan “Go Beyond It” to encourage youth to go beyond violence
and move toward peace. They also created a collage with images about violence,
peace and powerful statements to convey the message. They posted the collage at the Boys and Girls
Club and wore their shirts to bring awareness to this issue and reduce the
violence in Menlo Park.
Team 18, St. Elizabeth Seton, Palo
Alto – Manage Your Stress So You Won’t Hurt Your Children
The team at St. Elizabeth Seton is concerned about
parental stress that leads to child abuse.
They created 80 book marks to hand out at the school book fair that
contained information on how parents can manage stress. The bookmarks included such sayings as, “Take a deep breath and promise not
to hurt your child”. By getting parents
to change their behavior the girls feel that they will help to stop child abuse
in their community.
Team
9, Manuel F. Cunha Intermediate School, Half Moon Bay – What happens to that
plastic bag?
Girl Action
Team #9 is concerned about the effects of litter on the environment. They wanted to inform others on the impact
their trash has on the world now and for years to come. They took action by creating a video and
posting it on the internet to educate others on what happens when they don’t
pick up their plastic bags. They hope
with more information people won’t just toss their trash on the ground and will
think about the impact of their actions.
Team 23, Selby Lane, Redwood City – Gangs are NOT Cool
Team #23 identified
gangs as a root cause of violence in the community. They created an outreach
campaign using t-shirts and fliers. Their message to fellow students is that being
a part of gangs just isn’t cool. The fliers were made in both English and
Spanish and were handed out by the team the same day they wore their t-shirts at
school. By educating students on the dangers of gangs,
they hope to prevent the spread of violence in their community.
Team 1, East Palo Alto Boys and Girls
Club, East Palo Alto – Self Defense Training for 6th Grade Girls
The girls of Team #1 felt unsafe in
their community. They felt that a lack of community resources and education on
how to defend themselves compromised their safety, so they decided to take
matters into their own hands! They
wanted to educate themselves on defense techniques. The team arranged for
self-defense training, donated by Impact Bay Area, for 6th grade
girls at the Boys and Girls Club. With
the newly learned defense skills they empowered 20 girls to protect themselves if
they are ever in a dangerous situation.
Team 19, McKinley Institute of Technology, Redwood City - Why Wait, Educate!
The girls at McKinley felt that they didn't want to wait to tackle ignorance and popular misconceptions about teen pregnancy. They create t-shirts and bookmarks to educate others and raise awareness on teen pregnancy prevention resources that are available in their community. They want to spread the message to teen girls that it's okay to say "no" to sex and that there are confidential resources available to them.
Team 32, College Track, East Palo Alto – Voices of SistaHood
The girls at EPA College
Track felt that teens aren’t getting enough trust from their parents due to the
actions of other teens. The girls received a workshop on grant writing in order
to fund the start of their own girl group at EPA College Track that is geared
toward bringing girls and parents together to start dialog and communication. By
hosting events for girls and their parents with bonding activities, an online
forum for emotional support, and having merchandise to sell, the girls hope to
gain the trust of their parents despite the actions of other teens. The girls have
scheduled their first meeting and will be developing a name, logo and missions
statement for their group.
Alameda County
Team 29, Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy (high school), Oakland
Team 29 felt that guys aren't taking their share of responsibility when it comes to the issue of teen pregnancy. The girls want guys to understand that safe sex education is the responsibility of both parties involved. The girls created a human billboard campaign of t-shirts with the message, "Who is responsible: Both of us!" They also got the word out by texting their fellow classmates to wear purple the same day they wore their shirts to stand in solidarity and to help prevent teen pregnancy.
Team 22, Leadership Public Schools College Park, Oakland – Stop the Jokes!
The girls at LPS College
Park are tired of hearing jokes about race and stereotypes at their school.
After having a round table discussion about why people stereotype and how it
has personally affected their lives, the
girls decided to get the word out by making posters to combat common racial stereotypes.
By starting this conversation they hope people can find common ground rather
than continue to make hurtful jokes.
Team 17, Leadership Public Schools,
Hayward – Choosing the Right Addiction
The girls from LPS Hayward want to
decrease the number of teens using drugs and increase the focus on the
importance of school and future goals.
They presented a workshop to 7th and 8th grade
students at Kings Middle School in Hayward in order to raise awareness around
the dangers of succumbing to drugs. They
hope the students will choose to say no to drugs by understanding the
detrimental effects it can have on their future.
The girls from the Cal Prep team want
to educate other girls to not believe the Hollywood hype about how they should
look. They took a trip to the San Francisco DeYoung Museum to research
different ideals of beauty. Following the visit, the girls created a video to
showcase their feelings on how women are inaccurately portrayed women in the
media. They plan to post the video on
the internet and send it to magazine editors in order to spread their message
that beauty has many different faces.
Team 27, Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy (middle school), Oakland CA –
Girls Deserve Respect!
The
girls on team #27 felt that boys receive messages from society and the media
that girls are sexual objects. They are tired of disrespectful comments and
actions from boys in their community and school so they decided to create
posters, flyers and t-shirts to convey their message that girls should be
treated with respect! They hope that their project will let other girls know
that they are not alone and to encourage boys to change their disrespectful
behavior.
San Francisco County
Team 30, College Track San Francisco, San Francisco
The girls at College Track SF wanted to put an end to domestic violence. They felt that by educating men and women on how domestic violence affects both genders, that people would have a better understanding on how to prevent it from happening in their community. The girls created posters and flyers with statistics on domestic abuse by both men and women in order to spread the word that it affects everyone. They also provided San Francisco domestic abuse resources and hotlines for those seeking more information on how to stop the cycle of domestic violence.
Santa Cruz County
Team 28, Santa Cruz Boys and Girls Club, Santa Cruz - More Love, Less Gangs!
The girls at the Boys and Girls Club felt that gangs are a problem in their community. The team felt that kids who don't get enough love and attention at home were more likely to join gangs. They decided to get the word out by making stickers with positive messages such as, "More Love, Less Gangs". The stickers were given out to the other kids at the club and in their community. They hope to be a positive influence by spreading their message to other in order to prevent them from joining gangs.
Team 26, Lakeview Middle School, Watsonville- Bad Attention
The team at Lakeview has
had enough with people being bullied! They developed the slogan, “Hate is easy,
love takes courage” and created fliers, posters and t-shirts to encourage
bullies to seek out positive ways to get attention instead of bullying. They girls also created an announcement to be
read over the loudspeaker the day they promoted their project. The announcement
shared their message that students should be courageous and loving toward their
fellow classmates.
Team 31, Live Oak Boys and Girls Club - Be Prepared, Use Protection!
Team 31 is tired of seeing absent fathers and the effect is has on their community. They felt that this was less likely to occur if people were better prepared and used protection when it comes to being sexually active. The girls created t-shirts with messages promoting protection in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies and therefore absentee fathers. They wore their shirts while passing out buttons and stickers to other students at the Boys and Girls club hoping to pass along their message to the community.
Below are projects that girls across Silicon Valley created in the fall of 2009.
Team 1, J.W. Fair Middle School, San Jose – Violence Away from San Jose
The girls at
Team 2,
Girl Action Team 2 was concerned about middle school and high school girls making choices that did not reflect their values. They wanted girls to feel empowered to be authentic. The team believes that low self-esteem and peer pressure are the driving force behind this problem. The girls created alter to explore their own values and think about what they want to stay true to in their lives. They also developed a set of written tools for the team to use when faced with peer pressure that encourages a message of authenticity and staying true to who you are.
Team 4,
The Oak Grove GFC team is getting the word out about stopping animal abuse. They believe that too many animals are not being spayed or neutered and this results in over population and leads to abuse and neglect. The girls reached out to local animal organizations in order to gather information and resources needed to create a Facebook page. They dedicated the social networking page to informing the community on how to be responsible pet owners. They plan on using the Facebook page as a way to mobilize the community and be a resource for educating others in order to stop the cycle of animal abuse.
Team 5,
The girls at
Team 7,
Girl Action Team number 7 hoped to encourage students in their community to think twice before using weapons to solve problems. The girls feel people need strong communication skills so that when confronted with conflict, people will start peaceful and respectful dialogue. The girls tackled this issue by making T-shirts that depicted people creating peaceful conflict resolution. They wore the shirts to school to promote conversation around their cause in hopes of creating a community that doesn’t respond to hatred with guns and violence but with love and respect.
Team 8,
The girls of Lighthouse Charter created an information booth to educate people about thinking before they act. The team feels that people do not analyze the consequences of their behavior before they act and therefore cause harm to people, pets, the environment, etc. The team presented their booth at the school’s Expo in December. The booth included guest speakers, informational posters and resource flyers and brochures that spread the message of not causing harm. The girls feel that by making informed choices, people will cause less harm in the world.
Team 9,
The girls of Team 9 wanted to feel better about their bodies. They believe that women and girls are flooded with images of how society thinks they should look. The team designed buttons that say “I’m Beautiful” and distributed them at Don Callejon School and the Sobrato Family Living Center. They hope to educate other girls that it is important to feel good about their bodies and that they will feel powerful in order to change their community and their own lives.
Team 10,
The team at East Palo Alto Charter wanted to spread the word that there are repercussions to gossiping and that people just don’t understand how much damage gossip it can cause. The girls educated their school on the topic of gossip by creating and wearing T-shirts that showed the negative effects that gossiping can cause. The girls wore their shirts to school and encouraged their peers to sign them as an agreement to not gossip and to think critically before spreading negative messages about someone else.
Team 11,
The girls of Team 11 determined that fear is the main cause of discrimination and stereotyping in their community. They are currently developing a workshop curriculum for middle school students that will focus on breaking down stereotypes and unifying girls. They plan to complete the curriculum during the 2009/2010 school year and present it to their administrators for future school use. They hope the workshops will build respect for cultural diversity through girl partners that strengthened self-respect.
Silicon Valley Girl Steering Committee
This year the Girl Steering Committee devoted their time to formulate new projects for the Girls For A Change Girl Action Network. They designed new promotional materials in order to get the word out about the Network to girls in Silicon Valley and on Girl Action Teams. They also developed the video interviews to be launches in 2010/2011 called, "I am a woman of Change". These interviews include perspectives from various women in their community that support social change. The Girl Steering Committee want other girls to feel inspired by the women they admire in their community and to encourage them to become agents of social change.