Breaking the cycle of worldwide poverty is an enormous endeavor. Enter Holly Gordon, the architect behind Girl Rising, a global campaign to educate adolescent girls around the world. As Co-Founder and Board Chairman of Girl Rising, Holly looks for new opportunities to drive change around the world. She is also an executive producer of the inspiring film, Girl Rising, at the heart of the movement, which tells the stories of nine girls from developing countries who overcome great obstacles to obtain an education and change the course of their lives. Holly has been selected by Fast Company as a member of the League of Extraordinary Women and named by Newsweek/Daily Beast as one of 125 Women of Impact. Forbes Magazine also named the Girl Rising movement the #1 Most Dynamic Social Initiative of 2012.
NB: You previously worked at ABC News and Tribeca Film Festival. How did your previous experience as a journalist shape your work on Girl Rising?
HOLLY: My work as a journalist was fundamentally important to my work at Girl Rising; it informed the work every step of the way. One of the most important components of Girl Rising is that we started with a question that was broad. The question that we set out to answer is "what is the best intervention to break cycles of poverty in the developing world?" and my experience as a journalist was fundamental in coming to that topic without any kind of biases. When we discovered the truth that educating girls is the closest thing to a silver bullet in global development, it felt like a significant discovery, and a discovery that, as a journalist, felt like a really important story. That led to the second piece that was important, which is the ability for a story to change the way people think about their own circumstances and the way they behave. The reason that many girls aren’t educated is not because parents don’t love their daughters, but because traditions and practices that have become entrenched over generations just aren’t informed about this truth that if you do educate your girls, your life will improve. In some traditions, the sense is that girls are more valuable for their bodies than they are for their minds. Using storytelling as a tool for change is something that was directly linked to my history as a journalist. The final piece is that about the time we stumbled across this discovery about educating girls, the proliferation of news outlets meant that no single news outlet could be powerful enough to disseminate this important story in the way that it deserved. Girl Rising was an attempt to knit together audiences and support from across platforms, from across society, to carry the story forward. We were going for headlines in thousands of newspapers and stories on thousands of news broadcasts, reaching audiences in thousands of movie theaters, schools, corporations and communities across the country.
NB: Globally, the world is facing a lot of social issues. Why was girls' education the one that you chose to focus on?
HOLLY: Economic insecurity is at the core of most of the world’s greatest challenges. Many, many wars are fought over money. You see radicalization in places where there’s high unemployment rates, you see corruption and aggressive nation-states in places where women and girls are not included in society. When it turned out that girls' education seemed to have this trans-societal effect and actually reduces poverty, it felt like the most important place for us to put our efforts.
NB: What was the process you went through to create this global movement, starting from the idea to getting it to the global presence it is now?
HOLLY: A lot of hard work, a lot of time, a lot of meetings, phone calls and relationship-building. We created Girl Rising on two tracks. One track was the filmmaking track, and there were many steps to that, starting with the pre-production work of identifying girls, introducing girls to the writers who would write their stories, working with the writers and then shooting the screenplay, and then the final piece of requesting the support and performances of some of the world’s greatest actors. The process of making the film took about 3 years, in which there was a revolution in Egypt which had an effect on our shooting schedule; there were real world impacts on the making of the film itself. The second track to the production of the film was creating the campaign. Orchestrating all those actors to take part in the release of the film and supporting it at the same time was like conducting an orchestra where we recruited individual players one by one. The different members of the orchestra loosely organized were the nonprofit community, organizations that are working with girls everyday all around the world, like “Room to Read," and “Plan International," who became great partners with us. Our friends at Intel, the work we did with CNN and others like Google have also been instrumental along the way in their support. And then the philanthropists. The philanthropists are an enormous part of making global change because they have the ability to fund experiments, and Girl Rising was really an experiment. Finally, the policy sector. The policy leaders from the state department, organizations that worked every day on the policies and research that governed our lives- bringing them on board was also a really important job. The film finished, and then it was time for the campaign, this orchestra that we’d gathered, to start to play. [Sundance Film Festival] of 2013 was the preview, then in March around the International Women’s Day we launched the film, and the orchestra played to a full room. We launched it all around the world, and because we spent so long building partnerships and building a network of support, the film was able to travel further than we were able to imagine.
NB: Out of the millions of stories out there, why did you choose the nine that were portrayed in the documentary?
HOLLY: We met hundreds of girls and interviewed them. What we were looking for, some of it was scientific, so we had a white board with a diversity of countries. On one side of the axis we had countries that we selected and on the other side of the axis we had barriers that girls faced to education. We know that getting an education when you are a girl is a two-faceted problem. We had identified the 12 barriers that keep girls from school, and we plotted those barriers against countries. We were looking for girls whose stories were extraordinary, but actually very ordinary. What we learned very quickly is that even though the stories in Girl Rising seem so particular, they actually are emblematic of thousands, if not millions, of girls who have felt the same thing. It is really important that when you watch the film, you feel the experience of those girls and you feel both a kinship with them and also a responsibility to help them. Even if your circumstances are equally challenging, there is a humanity about the stories that you feel and you feel inspired to make a difference after watching. That’s really what we were going for; we choose girls whose stories could connect both the head and the heart.
NB: Was there a particular story or moment in the film that stood out to you, that you’d consider "defining?"
HOLLY: It’s like asking me to choose a favorite child, I love all my babies equally. But there are three moments in the film that I always come back to. One is the moment that Wadley in the Haiti story stands up and refuses to leave school; her teacher lets her stay, and she unleashes her warm, gentle smile into the audience. I always know how the screening is going based on the audience’s reaction. More often than not, there is just a ripple of warm laughter, and I think “okay, we’re on our way. These people are in it with us,” and it’s because of Wadley’s courage and vulnerability, which I think is a very special combination that many girls have. And then there’s a scene in the Nepal chapter, where there is a line that says “the children in her second master’s family treat her worse than the goats,” and it just gets me every time. And then, of course, I really love the end of the film, when Amina stands up and declares her manifesto of change: that she knows a time in Afghanistan when things were different, and that she is change. It gives me goosebumps every time.
NB: What do you hope to see the Girl Rising movement enable?
HOLLY: For me, the power of Girl Rising is as a tool for local change. I want it to enable community leaders, like Pauleen in the Philippines who has been travelling across the Philippines in a bus talking to communities about the rights of girls in the Philippines, and Aaruhi in Pakistan who organized a series of screenings across Pakistan in support of a girls’ education piece of legislation. Girl Rising is a tool for change-makers to bring into their community and start to change the rules for girls where they live. We've learned that in order to make change you need a catalyst. You need something to spark a conversation, and from the conversation grows the change. Girl Rising is a catalyst for any leader, anywhere to use to spark change for girls. The second thing I hope it does is unite girls and people who love them all across the world in a shared goal of education, both for boys and girls, but especially for girls who are held back because of their gender. I see Girl Rising as an enabling umbrella; if you stand under it, you stand with your brothers and sisters who share your vision of a future where girls and boys have equal access to education.
I see Girl Rising as an enabling umbrella; if you stand under it, you stand with your brothers and sisters who share your vision of a future where girls and boys have equal access to education.
NB: Can you point to any tangible progress as a result of Girl Rising?
HOLLY: I can point to my favorite of all, which is the First Lady’s Let Girls Learn Initiative that was launched just over a year ago. Girl Rising participated in the policy meetings leading up to that announcement, and we worked very closely with the White House to support the First Lady’s efforts on girls’ education and on the dissemination of the Let Girls’ Learn message. The idea that there is now a US strategy for adolescent girls’ education, when five years ago that was not even a distant dream, is a monumental change.
NB: What is next for Girl Rising?
HOLLY: We are actively working with the support of the US government, the Indian government and the Nigerian government in India, Nigeria and Congo. We continue to use Girl Rising as a social change tool. We are currently in the midst of a three-year campaign in India where we’ve translated the film into Hindi and we’ve recruited some of the biggest stars of Hollywood. We’ve been making PSAs and working with Star TV and the Indian government to bring the story all across the country. In Nigeria and Congo, we’ve also been using storytelling and partnership to change attitudes and behaviors in two very difficult countries. As we look to the future, we look to continue to build nationally-based campaigns to raise visibility around girls' education where girls need it most.
NB: How can people in the community get involved with and contribute to the Girl Rising movement?
HOLLY: The first thing you can always do is host a screening, bring people together and have a discussion about the challenges that girls face in the developing world and in the United States. We have lots of tools on our website to help you do this. The second thing you can do is, beyond that, continue to raise your voice for change, partner up with one of the NGO partners that we work with that do community work around the world and to support with philanthropy. I like community-based philanthropy, so not just writing a check, but doing something inspiring to get other people to give alongside you. There’s nothing like supporting the rights of girls around the world through Girl Rising or through any number of the other organizations, including Let Girls Learn, where you can connect directly with a Peace Corps worker who is somewhere in the world leading a girls’ education program. The Let Girls Learn Initiative is a really wonderful hands-on way to get engaged in change for girls. Two other organizations that I would recommend are “She’s the First,” started by my friend Tammy Tibbetts, which is an opportunity for girls and boys in the United States to generate philanthropy to raise money to send girls in the developing world to high school for the very first time. Secondarily, the UN Foundation’s Girl Up Initiative, which is an opportunity for young people to raise awareness about the challenges that girls face all around the world and to raise money for UN Programs for girls around the world. The best thing to do is to do the thing that you’re passionate about. Follow your heart and your imagination because there are so many ways to make a change in the world.
Follow your heart and your imagination because there are so many ways to make a change in the world.
NB: What is your advice for young people who want to start movements to solve problems in their own communities?
HOLLY: I think that The Girl Rising playbook is actually a pretty good one. Start with a question, don’t start with the answer. Start with a question like “what in my community needs changing?” It could be something in your school, it could be something beyond your school, but ask your friends and ask yourself. If you don’t know already what you want to change, ask around. What do people think could be improved? My first piece of advice is just to ask questions. My second piece of advice is to think about who you’re trying to reach. If you’re trying to make a change, who actually has power over that change? And who else in your community would benefit from that change? Take the time to go and meet with those people so that, just like Girl Rising, you build yourself a community of supporters. The third thing I would suggest is to think about the catalyst. Girl Rising used a film. What could you do in your community that could get people together? The arts is usually a really great way to do it. When you look at Girl Rising, it is all over the world now and it is an engine of its own, but to get there there were a lot of incremental steps. Try not to get overwhelmed by the enormity of the technology you’re trying to solve, but really think about the next steps that you need to take.
NB: The Girl Rising movement is dedicated towards women’s’ education and empowerment. Who are three empowering women that inspire you?
HOLLY: I am inspired by Hillary Clinton. She spent her life in public service and she has had every reason in the book to give up along the way. There’s nothing that she hasn’t been called, and yet, she continues to bring her talents to work every day on behalf of others and that’s truly what a politician does. She is an inspiration to me. Eleanor Roosevelt is also. I often think about Eleanor Roosevelt, who really was a woman leader before her time. I think that the third woman who inspires me, is actually a group of women. It's those women who, wherever they sit within their communities, whether it be at the community level because they are volunteering to help create an infrastructure in schools across America, whether they are the women in uniform, women in the corporate world or women who are giving up their own skills and talents to make our communities better. I think that it is something that women are asked to do more than men, which is to use their skills and talents to better other people's’ lives, and I take my hat off to every single woman who uses her human capacity to improve the lives of others.