Case Study Summary

Black Girls Rising originated out of Earthchild Project’s Worm Farming and Eco Warriors School Base Program that helped to integrate Environmental Education into the school curriculum. The program now meets many of the challenges faced by marginalised girls, and especially the youth climate movement with a focus on intersection of somatics, youth development, social inclusion and climate justice. The Case Study research explores the challenges faced by marginalized girls and focuses on advocacy aimed at 12–18-year-olds in South African townships.

Black Girls Rising aims to highlight the role of empowering young black girls in advocating for climate justice and centering their lived experience through amplifying their voices. Black girls from marginalised communities are the most invisible and disconnected from climate advocacy and action. sharing their voices is important for people who have seldom been allowed to take up space and share their voices.

The Case Study research has a specific objective to develop a method in conjunction with 10 members of Black Girls Rise that gives voice to their concerns, acknowledges their understanding of climate change, documents their experience of climate change within their socio-economic context, and provides them with tools that empowers them to increase their ability to communicate and advocate for change. 10 young women will gather data within their communities through semi-structured questionnaires designed as workbooks that will aim to understand how climate change impacts on young people’s lives and if/how they communicate and engage as peers or inter-generationally around those impacts. The young people will be considered co-researchers in the process. They will be shown how to organise, code and analyse the data. The data will be used as building blocks to construct a children’s story that aims to engender creative imaginings of an active response to Climate Change impacts within a local context.

This mentoring program supports young women as they create and discover pathways to self-empowerment and agency. The goal is to bridge connections to change the global south narrative by offering a complementary education on climate change, sexual reproductive health, emotional intelligence, life skills and leadership.