Create a Local
Girls’ Bill of Rights
If you and your friends think you should have a different set of rights for your own community, there’s nothing stopping you! Here are guidelines for hosting your own session to create a local Girls’ Bill of Rights.
Before the event
Spread the word about your plans. You can include your friends, your classmates, or your after-school program. Let them know that you’ll all be creating a bill of rights for girls in your community. You can host this event in person or online.
During your event
Introduce yourself and share why the Global Girls’ Bill of Rights is important to you, and important to girls around the world. Sharing why you're passionate can inspire others. Let the other participants to introduce themselves and why they chose to come to the meeting.
Recap the Global Girls’ Bill of Rights. Be sure to include what it is, how the rights were compiled, and its impact to date - you can find those details here.
Work with your participants to create a set of rules to guide your conversation to ensure a safe, respectful space. These are often called shared agreements because the group must unanimously agree to uphold them. Write them down somewhere visible to all participants so that it can be easily referenced during the discussion. As a group, decide how many total rights you would like to include in your local Girls’ Bill of Rights.
Give participants a few minutes to brainstorm on their own or in small groups about what rights they would like to include. We’ve put together this worksheet to structure their ideas.
Take an inventory of the rights. Work with your participants to group similar rights together.
Read aloud the first right (or category of rights) to the group. Have participants take turns doing this as well. Before moving on to the next right, ask attendees to share why it should be included in your list. Then, hold a vote for that right. Keep track of how many votes each right receives, until you’ve narrowed your list down to the number you chose together.
Determine what’s next for your local Girls’ Bill of Rights - including what you want to call it! There are so many ways to advocate for girls’ rights -- work together and decide what will make the biggest impact in your community! Create your own project or get inspiration from our project guides here.
Next Steps
Connect with your signees after the event through a follow-up message via an email, Facebook or Whatsapp message, or SMS/text. Start your message with gratitude and a recap of the event. Remind them of what’s next for the local Girls’ Bill of Rights and how they can stay involved.