RITES FOR GIRLS
Rites for Girls What was missing in your education? “I learned about tectonic plate movements, but not about how to manage my big feelings. I learned how to multiply fractions, but not how to find my voice.” What if you’d had the experience of belonging to a group of girls where you didn’t have to change anything about yourself to fit in, because you were accepted exactly as you were? What difference would that have made to your life? At Rites for Girls, that’s what we offer young women. Girls’ Net provides guidance and camaraderie through times of challenge to small groups of same-age girls (aged eight to eighteen) in weekly online sessions over six weeks. Our mentors offer tools for coping well and the girls access their inner resources whilst also realising that they’re not alone (and can support each other). Girls Journeying Together groups offer a year of in-person monthly support for pre-teen girls as they practise being true to themselves, learn about puberty, share their hopes and fears, make the transition from primary to secondary school and help each other into their teens.
We support girls to emerge from adolescence stronger than they went in, working to prevent the high rates of anxiety, selfharm and low esteem. We train women to facilitate Girls Journeying Together and Girls’ Net groups, supporting the girls and their mothers. Facilitators become ‘the woman they needed at eleven’ and are provided with meaningful work that fits around other commitments, enabling them to serve in a diverse range of cultures and bring back the power of community in a way that appeals to today’s girls. From Daughter to Woman: Parenting girls safely through their teens by our founder, Kim McCabe, is a practical book for parents of girls
aged eight to eighteen, bringing back the joy of parenting a preteen into and through her teens. The Rites for Girls CIC mission is to change the world one girl at a time, by making the lives of young women safer, kinder and better supported. Join us! TURN TO PAGE 61 to read about Internet Safety
EDUCATION CHOICES MAGAZINE | S PRI NG 2023 | 57
