served high-achieving female students from the most disadvantaged communities, inviting them into our seven-month program during the gap period between secondary school graduation and university enrollment. The program began as an endeavor to engage young women during a period of time when they were vulnerable to teen pregnancy and other household obligations that might derail their university education. Our program gave young women their first opportunity to initiate their own ideas for social change in their home communities.  Our 40-hour Conscious Social Change curriculum, delivered across three in-person intensives, combined personal transformation work, mindfulness–based leadership skills, social entrepreneurship tools, and mind-body trauma practices to enable young women to develop into compassionate leaders. With our seed funding and ongoing coaching and mentoring, our students carried out viable plans of their own design for community change benefiting others, especially other girls. Many students worked to remove barriers to girls’ education, including early marriage, teen pregnancy, and school fees. Through personal growth work, our curriculum deepened their sense of self-confidence, agency and courage, while our incubator provided concrete skills and opportunity to design and operate their own solutions. Finally, we would provide each student a $500 scholarship towards their university education. 

There is nothing more powerful than to experience that your ideas have value and can make a difference. Soon, we began to recognize the extraordinary levels of impact these young women were having. Within a year’s program, they were touching 5,000 - 10,000+ people in their communities in only a matter of months. On an individual level, they were experiencing profound personal transformation having their ideas supported by Global Grassroots and their community. They built confidence and agency from launching their small enterprise – from program design and curriculum delivery through financial grant management and monitoring and evaluation. They inspired other young girls through their example as well as through their programming. They managed opposition and conflict among stakeholders with mindfulness skills, and became seen among their community as an educated leader rather than a girl with no status. While many were the very first to attend higher education from their villages, they demonstrated that young women care about their community and return home from school again and again to give back. The experience contributed directly to a sense of power, meaning, and an embodied sense of leadership.  Overall, the effect from having a social impact resonated not only in the community among others, but within each girl as her altruistic and pro-social behavior increased and her sense of meaning and self-worth deepened. The students graduated knowing they now had the nuts-and-bolts tools to be able to create change again.  Many of those who chose not to continue their ventures upon attending university passed their activities along to adults in their communities to carry on as a social good. Most shifted their course of university study to incorporate their interest in social change. Nearly all continued some personal transformation practice to support their wellbeing and self-awareness. And many went on to utilize their skills to solve other problems in their university and professional life, or took on new leadership roles as a result of their experience. All in all, our nearly 246  young women alumni will continue to carry on the legacy of Global Grassroots and Conscious Social Change into the worlds they will inhabit as professionals, mothers, leaders, and community members for the rest of their lives.