Our 2nd edition of the Girlhood summer programme. A FREE 2-week creative programme for young Black girls aged 15-17, based across london.

Video credit: Coco Shaw

This year, we stepped things up and designed an experience to INSPIRE young Black girls to unleash their full potential.

By engaging with sport, wellness & creativity we wanted to improve their self-identity, help them pick up new skills and make NEW friends.

“What I like most about the programme is becoming closer to the girls and upping my confidence as a young black girl, and being able to speak my mind without any negative thoughts and criticising myself.” - Programme cohort

Photography credit: Zoë Kezia

This year’s programme commenced with a sports and wellness day, led by Intisar Abdul-Kader, Rebecca Moore and Deborah Mederick. Intisar is a Public Health Practitioner for the NHS, model and an avid long distance runner with LDN SLCT and facilitated an inspirational talk, focusing on motivation and building resilience for Black girls. While Rebecca used her experience as a meditation, breathwork and wellness coach to facilitate a breath, mindfulness, movement and yoga workshop.

Deborah’s session focused on showing and engaging the cohort in different self-defence techniques used in Choi Kwang Do, including close range drills, kicking, punching, striking & blocking to build confidence and improve their martial arts skills.

Photography Credit: Zoë Kezia

Next up, we had a Creative Careers day which was led by MaryAnn Msengi, Tumisha Balogun and Abigail Maria Sol. With each session influencing and supporting the next one.

MaryAnn Msengi shared valuable, practical tips and tools for starting and building a small-scale business, using her experience as the Founder & Creative Director of Farai London as a case-study. Co-founder & Marketer Tumisha provided our cohort with the wisdom of creative strategy, branding and marketing, using Red Bull, Corteiz and Black Girl Fest as examples. While, Abigail used her knowledge of Theatre and Film to facilitate a Creative Theatre workshop to improve the cohort’s self-confidence, improvisation and public speaking skills.

Following this we hosted a Self-Development day which was facilitated by Bella Michelle, Jayda David, Demii Walker and Tonia Wilson. Where the facilitators discussed all things content creation, youth activism, spoken word and poetry!

Photography Credit: Zoë Kezia

Our programme manager, Amanda Saakwa-Mante led the project work session which sparked the cohort’s creativity to produce a vision board and piece of writing for the physical and digital Zine.

The Girlhood Zine is a collection of illustrations, affirmations and advice, designed to inspire and encourage young Black girls to explore what they would like their legacy to be, and share tips for other young Black girls. Each piece of writing was accompanied by portraits of the girls, produced by illustrator Giorgia Sugarman.

For our final day, Toni Tone, Afro Kickz and JUMP LDN delivered the ‘Community Chill’ sessions. This day consisted of fun relationships, creative and fitness-focused talks and activities, ranging from lessons on love, sneaker customisation, and a Double-Dutch skipping session. Allowing the cohort to connect with positive role models, explore their artistic style and engage in movement, whilst leveraging music to improve well-being!

Photography Credit: Zoë Kezia

“It was a really nice way to end our programme. All the girls came together, and supported one another which I loved watching, and the fact we did it out in public, made it really nice because we are showing the public how us black girls are always together and supportive.” - Programme cohort

We had the pleasure of hosting the showcase and graduation at Nike HQ. It was an opportunity for the cohort to regroup with their friends and family and see the Girlhood Zine in print, which was a HUGE success. It was great to see how each of the girls developed throughout the programme, and we can't wait to see them continue to flourish!

Huge thank you to our wonderful cohort, facilitators and everyone who made this programme possible!

Check out the Girlhood Zine below!