Girls encouraged to be leaders in new entrepreneurial program

We get young girls in particular to think about problems in their community and reframe these problems as opportunities through the design thinking process and the outcomes are absolutely amazing and hopefully will empower these young girls to see themselves as future CEOs and founders that are capable of changing the world. What are some of the problems that you set them and what what are some of the responses that they come up with? Yeah, so they’re all community driven problems. So the girls are able to brainstorm problems not only in their local communities but in communities that are important to them and then they go through the sign thinking process to actually create social enterprise driven solution to these problems. So it’s all about positive social impact and some of the problems we see them coming up with some solutions for are really, really big national problems such as homelessness, the cost of living, food availability. And then we also have really localised problems as well, such as bullying and also really, really prominent cultural problems too. So they’re tackling real life issues and some of the solutions that they come up with I think of really feasible and we should look at applying them. Can you think of, Well, can you give us some examples of those? Yes, of course. So a lot of the young girls come up with socially driven solutions such as charities and events to try and raise money for issues in their local areas. We’ve had cultural events to raise awareness for cultural issues. We also have innovations, so young people thinking about actual projects that they can bring to life and creating real life elements such as the issue of littering and coming up with new bins to try and get people to recycle better and actually put their rubbish in the bins as well. So some really great solutions out there created by these young girls. Tiffany, do you find that lots of girls need the encouragement and affirmation you provide in your sessions in order to recognise their own potential? Yes, absolutely. We need to empower these girls to see themselves as having being able to have impact on the future. For a really long time, business and social entrepreneurship has been a typically traditionally male dominated industry. So we really need to encourage girls to see themselves as having the power to create positive impact in the world. We just need to provide them with the voice and the pathways to do so. And that’s what we’re all about. Do you find that girls think differently to boys that they come at problems from at a different angle? Yes, absolutely. So girls tend to be a little bit more empathetic with their approaches. So when we are thinking about our problems, the girls do brainstorm different problems, but we’ll see boys group brainstorm and I think this does come down to to empathy and different ways of thinking as well. So it is always really great to see the empathy shine through in these girls programs. What are the plans to roll out the program, Tiffany? Yes, so we’ve lived these programs all across the country. It is a funded program opportunity as well. So Young Change Agents is funded by the Academy for Enterprise and Girls to deliver these funded programs all across Australia. So we do have a limited amount of programs that we can run. So if you are interested, just jump onto our website and follow the links and hopefully we can get involved and help your school and empower your girls.