Girls Out Loud is a UK based social enterprise set up in 2009 by serial entrepreneur, author, coach, speaker, trainer and female champion Jane Kenyon. Jane had spent the previous 15 years as an entrepreneur in the personal development arena working exclusively with women and felt the need to expand her legacy to working with teen girls. At the time the UK had the highest teen pregnancy in Europe, low teen aspirations and mental health issues were just starting to peek around the corner in every school Pastoral meeting.
Fast forward 10 years and due to the dominance of social media, a society fixated on appearance with appalling body confidence and little movement on the role of women in society, teen girls are in the midst of a mental health crisis. Self-harming is at an all-time high, teen girl suicides are on the increase, grooming and porn has gone mainstream and 70% of girls experience cyber bullying. On top of this girls are now questioning careers due to low visibility of female role models and exam pressure and the fear of failure is putting them off even trying.
The mission of Girls Out Loud has now become more than a nice to have for the few. Our early intervention programmes empower girls to have a positive sense of self, to set personal boundaries, to believe they are worth more and harness their gumption – All necessary life skills if we are to make a dent in the unacceptable lack of parity across all sectors and all levels in the female talent pipeline.
We facilitate intervention programmes in schools from one day to 12 months in duration and in 2010 we launched a mentoring programme for teenage girls called BIG SISTER which involves us recruiting and training role models from diverse backgrounds to mentor teenage girls for a period of 12 months. The emphasis of all our activity is to embed a more empowering mindset in girls, which in turn, reconnects them to education, helps them achieve exam success and broaden their aspirations, encourages them to find their individual voice, take risks, make better life decisions, improve their self-image and become role models for future generations.
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