To host or sponsor a program, please contact:
Jennifer Weidenbaum
Associate Executive Director
212-531-7620
Our programs are offered to girls aged 6 to 18. Age-specific, the programs are created with a team of curriculum writers, field experts and specialists in the cognitive, emotional, intellectual and physical development of girls.
Meticulously researched and carefully tested, our programs are overwhelmingly popular!
Girls Inc. of NYC offers over 40 programs in 8 categories, both during and after school:
Each program has a thoroughly trained, professional leader and offer:
- Warmth and a sense of humor
- Understanding of different needs, cultures and
socioeconomic backgrounds
- Complete acceptance of different values and points of view
- Open, honest discussion and communication
- Full inclusion of girls with disabilities
Sponsor one of our programs and watch New York City benefit, as girls ultimately enter the professional world and bring with them a wealth of talent and diversity.
 Economic Literacy® gives girls a working knowledge of economic concepts with fun activities and lively discussions.
Girls gain a solid understanding of important aspects of personal, business and government finance, and how to develop and set realistic financial goals for different stages of their lives.
Through interactive projects and discussions with female finance executives, Economic Literacy explores:
- How personal attitudes, opinions and knowledge of money are formed and influenced
- The nuts and bolts of finance, including saving, investing, loans, banking, taxes, and credit
- Financial responsibility and self-reliance: how to earn, spend, save and share money
- Different types of careers and incomes
- Assessing personal qualifications for participation in the marketplace
- Knowing your rights in the workplace
- Donating money, goods, time and/or services to improve the community and the world
- Women in the economy, currently, historically, locally and globally
- Advocating for economic equity
- How the government makes economic decisions
- Consumerism and advertising: how to be a smart shopper
- What money can’t buy
Well-rounded and thorough, Economic Literacy imparts a world of knowledge the girls can use for a life of financial independence.
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 Friendly PEERsuasion® tackles a serious topic: substance-abuse prevention. But there are no heated lectures and graphic pamphlets in our programs. We offer role-playing and interactive projects that impart wisdom and nurture self-respect, in a respectful, judgment-free setting.
In Friendly PEERsuasion, girls learn:
- Self-esteem, one of the keys to avoiding drugs and alcohol
- Leadership skills, so each girl can become a PEERsuader and teach younger children
- Communications skills: speaking and listening carefully
- What addiction is and how to address it
- The causes of substance abuse
- What peer- and media-pressure are and how to sidestep them
- Stress management: how to recognize stress and shed it in healthy ways
- How to read over-the-counter drug labels
When girls complete the Friendly PEERsuasion program, they have the tools—and the motivation—to avoid drug and alcohol abuse and are inspired to help friends and family do the same.
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 Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy® explores and promotes the extraordinary personal and social benefits of avoiding teen pregnancy and fulfilling educational and career dreams. The program truly makes a world of difference to girls.
In Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy, girls learn:
- Personal and cultural values about sex
- The value of sexuality as a healthy part of life
- Facts and myths about sex, including anatomy, pregnancy, reproductive health, and STDs
- The option of abstinence, the value of assertiveness and how to assert boundaries
- Support from friends and family
- Positive, constructive communication between parents and daughters
- Healthy relationship behaviors and warning signs of relationship violence
- Peer pressure, the media and sexuality
With interactive projects and role-playing, Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy arms girls with information, nurtures their self-esteem—and motivates them to make healthy choices for a bright future.
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 Operation SMART® is a fantastic journey into intellectual pursuits that girls often shy away from: the nontraditional “STEM” fields:
- Science
- Technology
- Engineering
- Math
Community based, with lots of hands-on, interactive projects, girls learn how things work. In the process, they learn the process of inquiry and how to develop and learn from hypotheses. The leap in self-confidence and self-esteem girls enjoy as they realize how bright they are—and how much bigger their world is growing—is just wonderful.
Some of the many Operation Smart activities include:
- Making a flashlight
- Dismantling and reassembling machines
- Building an electronic circuit
- The biology of owl pellets
- Math “poetry”
- Debugging a computer
- Making a burglar alarm
- Exploring and creating levers, wheels, winches, pulleys and gears
- Building with the tools of engineers and architects
By immersing girls in disciplines they are either unfamiliar with or are intimidated by, Operation SMART® shows girls that they can have flourishing careers in any STEM discipline!
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 Media Literacy® radically transforms the way girls look at TV, newspapers, radio, movies, and the Internet—and, as a result—at themselves.
With interactive, hands-on projects and discussions, preconceived notions of who and what girls are, based on ever-present media messages, are dissected and reevaluated.
Girls also learn how to take the media into their own hands and affect the messages being sent out in the world.
Media Literacy explores:
- Types of media
- The messages we get—subtle and obvious—from media
- The impact of advertising on girls every day, in many ways
- How to be “media smart”
- Real beauty vs. media beauty
- Finding diversity in media
- “Talking back” to the media
- Hard news and how it portrays women
- Evaluating strong, smart and bold characteristics in real and fictional women
- Recognizing and getting rid of stereotypes
- Careers in news media—print, digital, radio, and TV
- Careers in entertainment media: film, TV, magazines, Broadway, etc.
The always exciting Media Literacy program culminates in DVDs and videos made by the girls themselves, based on their original storyboards.
Thanks to this unique program, girls discover the positive and negative aspects of media, as well as new views of themselves and their gender.
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 Leadership and Community Action® is an exciting program in which girls get to stand on the shoulders of great women throughout history who have led the world to positive social change.
Then, inspired and motivated by these great women, girls learn that they, too, can enrich their communities.
In our program, girls:
- Celebrate their heritage as leaders in local and global communities
- Explore their own leadership abilities
- Form partnerships with women leaders in their community
- Conduct community action projects
- Discover and learn to use leadership tools and skills
- Develop and practice decision-making, taking the initiative and taking responsibility
With a weekend retreat, interative activities, role play and other tools, girls learn that they are powerful agents of change and trustees of the common good.
From getting a traffic light at a dangerous corner to improving medical services, Leadership and Community Action is an exhilarating and empowering step on the path to making a wonderful and lasting mark on society.
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 Project BOLD® takes on tough topics—personal safety, self-defense and violence-prevention—with respect, openness and complete support.
From Project BOLD, girls learn that they are worthy of respect and freedom from harm. They learn skills and resources to safeguard their physical autonomy from street, domestic and school violence. Judgment-free, Project BOLD is a lifesaver for many girls, and for all girls, it is an urgent eye-opener.
With sensitive, unbiased, carefully created activities and role play, Project BOLD explores:
- Girls’ strengths and abilities
- Responding to a threat with verbal skills
- Learning basic physical self-defense skills
- Distinguishing between an insulting or provocative situation and a truly dangerous one—and how to respond in each case
- Self-defense options, including running, enlisting help, and telling others
- Teasing and bullying
- Sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape
- Family violence
- Dating abuse
- Prejudice, racism and bias violence
A critical learning experience for all girls, Project BOLD is indispensable and unforgettable, and it helps girls stay safe, so they can focus on building rich lives.
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 Sporting Chance®, a program with many exciting outdoor adventures, is not just about physical fitness! It is just as much about building support and trust, developing life skills, experiential learning and exploring the issues surrounding body image.
In Sporting Chance, girls discover the mind-body connection. They also discover that physical activity is a gateway to academic and personal growth.
Exciting expeditions abound! The girls enjoy both traditional and nontraditional sports activities:
Baseball • bicycling • canoeing • hiking • kayaking
Rock-wall climbing • ropes • rafting • soccer • softball
In Sporting Chance, girls plan and participate in activities, and:
- Learn the importance of fitness and its positive, holistic effects
- Discover that being physically fit has social and psychological benefits
- Learn about women in nontraditional adventure sports throughout history
- Enjoy improved self-esteem, as the focus moves from personal appearance to personal strengths
- Learn many life skills, including collaboration, mutual support, goal-setting, organization, decision-making, individual and group care, active listening, and communicating clearly
- Discover the joy of moving from the comfort zone to the learning zone in the outdoors
- Are inspired to become and remain fit now and as adults
A perfect example of learning on several levels, Sporting Chance is an uplifting and thrilling way for girls to learn how filled with greatness they are!
To host or sponsor a program, please contact:
Jennifer Weidenbaum
Associate Executive Director
212-531-7620
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