Families volunteer daughters between the ages of 9 and 12 for a twice weekly after school program. Developed with the assistance of a psychologist, the program uses role play and modeling to give girls the opportunity to practice coping behaviors in a safe, open and caring environment. The project relies on an unnamed girl character, face painted brightly and hair in playful braids. She serves as a role model for lessons, and her image is prominent on program literature and other tools. Like the girls in the program, she too lives amid poverty, the demands of being a girl child, and the violence, alcoholism, drugs and sexual abuse that pervades daily life here and begins shockingly early.
Girls relate to the character.
She is young, but forced to grow up quickly. These little girls become, through this program, agents for change in their lives, and in the lives of their families. And the mothers and fathers feel good about the program. They like its lessons. They are realizing that the current ways aren't working.