Organization and Program: Aroostook County Action Program, sisters-IN-sight
Type: discussion, peer mentoring
Ages:
Address/Phone: Aroostook and Washington Counties, ME
Funding: Maine Women’s Fund
This project strives to increase girls’ self-esteem, confidence, and self-image using the creative arts as a platform. Girls will meet in a series of “Circle Talks” in Houlton, Presque Isle, and Caribou to explore issues of common concern. A showcase girls’ conference will bring all groups together in spring 2004. Girl to girl mentoring is an aspect of the project.

Organization and Program: Artists in Residence, Winter Warmers
Type: mentoring, workshops, 3-4/month
Ages: older teens
Address/Phone: Dover, Colorado
Funding: Women’s Fund of New Hampshire
Using the arts as a prevention tool, Artists in Residence (AIR) mentors and collaborating community artists inspire girls to make healthy life choices and to feel positively about who they are and what they can accomplish. Winter Warmers is an after-school program that addresses the problem of low self-image and depression in older teenage girls. Beginning in October 2002, participants will meet three to four times each month with an AIR mentor and various community artists. Each activity will be centered on the girls' life experiences, encouraging them to be reflective and to have vision. The workshops will also require participants to work collaboratively with one another, teaching them to communicate successfully and to develop trust. Workshops include drama activities that demonstrate how to find one's voice and express oneself clearly, dance workshops to get girls moving and feeling good about their bodies, visual arts activities where girls can learn how to express their ideas and dreams in tactile form, and poetry where girls can learn the power of their words. Winter Warmers offers girls a safe environment, caring companionship, creative opportunities, and life-building skills.

Organization and Program: Beyond Media, Girls! Action! Media!
Type:
Ages:
Address/Phone: Chicago
Funding: Girls Best Friend Foundation
http://www.beyondmedia.org/gam.html
A program that teaches media/technology arts and academic skills to girls. The program fosters leadership development, public speaking, community activism, and girl-led social change.

Organization name: Cool Girls, Inc., Cool Sisters
Type:
Ages:
Address/Phone: 100 Edgewood Ave., Ste. 1000 Atlanta, GA 30303, 404.420.4364
http://www.coolgirlsatlanta.org/GirlsPrograms.asp
The Cool Girls Club is a life skills development program which provides a safe place to learn, introducing participants to topics including decision-making skills, pregnancy prevention, violence prevention and self-defense, nutrition, entrepreneurship and cultural awareness. Activities also include field trips that reinforce topics learned and show the girls that the world offers many opportunities.

Cool Sisters is a one-to-one mentoring program which establishes friendships between girls and volunteers. Cool Sisters serve as role models who develop relationships with the girls that allow them to monitor academic progress and personal development.

Organization and Program: Des Moines Area Religious Council, Girl Talk
Type: ethnic-specific, radio/tv show production
Ages:
Address/Phone: Forrest Harms - 515.277.6969, Iowa
Funding: Chrysalis Foundation
http://www.dmreligious.org/
Girl Talk addresses the social and leadership development of Latina and African American girls in central Iowa through production of the "Girl Talk" radio and television shows.

Organization and program: Girls’ Resiliency Program
Type: various
Ages:
Address/Phone: Lincoln County, WV
Funding: Ms. Foundation
This program started in 1996 and is based in rural Appalachia. The project works to effect change in the social welfare and school system by building girls' strengths and connection to other girls and women in the community. This is accomplished through girls' resiliency support groups, story anthropology and theater production, mother/daughter mentoring workshops, and the development of a rural girls' agenda.

Organization and Program: Ifetayo Cultural Arts Facility, Inc., Ifetayo Youth Ensemble
Type: ethnic-specific, mentoring
Ages:
Address/Phone: Brooklyn
Funding: New York Women’s Foundation
To support the artistic training in the performing arts for young African-American women. The funding will help with peer mentoring and goal-planning, guiding participants to become confident women with a strong vision of their future.

Organization and Program: Mariposa art – Girls’ Program
Type: after-school program
Ages: middle school
Address/Phone:
http://www.mariposasart.org/MarGirls.html
Description: A year-long after-school program divided into four eight-week program cycles, using art, music, and Our Leadership Development programs address key health and leadership development issues and intertwine visual art, African & Brazilian drumming & dance, journal writing and poetry, group discussion, leadership development, and self-reflection.

These programs target these key issues: conflict resolution and communication skills, goal setting, college and career planning, health issues including sexuality, STDs, drugs & alcohol, tobacco, nutrition, body image awareness, making positive life choices, self-expression, speaking up, boundary setting, and assertiveness.

Organization and Program: Menominee Indian High School Cradleboard Project
Type: ethnic-specific
Ages: 9th grade
Address/Phone: Keshena, WI
Funding: Girls Can!
By reviving the arts of cradleboard-making, the project exposed student students to useful skills and nontraditional careers while giving them a rich sense of their heritage. The group also interviewed tribal elders to learn about the significance of different cradleboard designs, created computer spreadsheets to determine costs of supplies, and created two videos documenting their work. The girls also met with women and men working in engineering, biology, forestry, and sawmill operations.

Organization and Program: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum/Radio Arte WRTE, Syrens Revolt
Type:
Ages:
Address/Phone: 1401 W. 18th St., Chicago, IL 60608, 312-455-9455
Funding: Girls Best Friend Foundation
A weekly one-hour program to be developed by a committee of young women aged 15-21. The committee of young female producers will create segments, write scripts, and host the radio show. This year, the young women will participate in a marketing campaign to get the work out about Syrens' Revolt.

Organization and Program: Miss Porter’s School, Arts Alive!
Type: month-long residential academic program
Ages: 7th-9th grades
Address/Phone: Farmington, Connecticut
Funding: participant fees
http://www.missporters.org/artsalive/
This features studio, performing and literary arts, field trips and athletics for girls.
Through experiences such as making masks for Greek theater, forming pottery and writing personal memoirs, girls will learn how to interpret universal experience, identify the importance of societal and personal history and recognize connections between themselves and the rich cultural traditions that surround them. Themes to be explored include form, voice, and relationships

Organization and Program: Music Theater Workshop, Fabulous Females
Type: for incarcerated girls
Ages:
Address/Phone: 7359 N. Greenview, Chicago, IL 60626, 773-973-7266
Funding: Girls Best Friend Foundation
A playwriting and performance program for young women incarcerated in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center of Chicago and recently released young women living in the Warrenville Illinois Youth Center. Program participants write and perform original plays.

Organization and Program: North Miami Beach Senior High Community School
Type: dance & self-defense classes
Ages: high school
Address/Phone:
Funding: Women’s Fund of Miami – Dade County
For a twice weekly class for high school girls that will blend self-defense techniques and learning through dance. The girls will be taught practical tips on avoiding rape or date rape as well as discipline, etiquette and acceptable inter-personal behavior between the sexes. The dance aspect will help to foster self-respect, grace and positive body image and acceptance at a typically vulnerable time for teenage girls. As they change their own attitudes, they will require healthier interactions with young men. They will share their self-defense tips in community exhibitions and participate in the White Ribbon Campaign to end violence against women. This grant is underwritten by Kathie Klarreich.

Organization and Program: On the Rise: Youth Empowerment through Art, Conflict Resolution through Hip Hop Dance
Type: dance class
Ages: teen
Address/Phone: Lamoille County, Vermont
Funding: Vermont Women’s Fund
Expands a semester-long hip-hop dance class for teenage girls at Peoples Academy in Morrisville. Through movement and discussion, the class emphasizes conflict resolution, self-empowerment, respect, and positive values.

Organization and Program: The Portage for Youth
Type: Ages: 8-15
Address/Phone: Dayton's Bluff neighborhood of Saint Paul
http://www.theportage.org/
The Portage for Youth will provide a neighborhood-based, non-institutional enrichment center, with projects designed to provide alternatives to criminal activity, drug use, dropping out of school, truancy and teen pregnancy. All Portage programs are designed to enhance the educational achievement of young women as well as their positive impact on society, their families and peers. Young women will be taught useful social, artistic, creative and academic skills. A Portage calendar is issued to all Portage participants and mailed on a monthly basis.

Organization and Program: Redmoon Theater, DramaGirls
Type:
Ages:
Address/Phone: 2936 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, IL 60657, 773-388-9031
Funding: Girls Best Friend Foundation
A performance group of thirty middle school aged girls in the Logan Square community of Chicago. This year, DramaGirls will collaborate with the Cambodian Association of Illinois to develop a cross-cultural arts learning curriculum called Crossing Cultures/Rites of Passage. This initiative will establish an ongoing creative exchange between DramaGirls and the girls in Chicago's Cambodian community.

Organization and Program: Street-Level Youth Media, The Girls Group
Type:
Ages: high school
Address/Phone: 1856 W. Chicago Ave., 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60622, 773-862-5331
Funding: Girls Best Friend Foundation
A media arts program for high school aged young women to explore gender issues in a safe, supportive, and participatory environment. Using video production, computer arts, and the Internet, young women address community issues, access advanced communication technology, and gain insight into information-based society.

Organization and Program: Video Machete, MAGIK
Type:
Ages: 15-18
Address/Phone: 1180 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60622, 773-645-1272
Funding: Girl’s Best Friend Foundation
http://www.videomachete.org/
For Media Activism for Girls and Trans Youth in the Know (MAGIK), a program for lesbian and bisexual girls and transgender youth ages that seeks to create social justice through media production, advocacy, self-expression, and community building.