POP-UP Festivals & WorldWideWomen’s Girls’ Festival

Inspire Over 5,000 Girls

Together, POP-UP Festivals and the Girls’ Festival are building a world in which girls feel invested in and empowered to thrive.

This past November, global resource directory WorldWideWomen hosted their fourth annual Girls’ Festival, a life-changing day of power and possibility for thousands of girls and their families. Six Seconds partnered with WorldWideWomen founder and CEO, Maureen Broderick, to bring POP-UP Festivals to the Girls’ Festival to help teach the girls about emotional literacy, empathy, and goal-setting.

This idea that investing in girls is one key component to global wellbeing and prosperity is a popular and well-researched one, and Maureen found the same enthusiasm on the ground at their very first Girls’ Festival in 2016. “We were praying for 1500 people to show up.” When the day finally came after all their hard work, 6,000 people poured into the festival. “We thought to ourselves: We must have touched on something here!” 

At the POP-UP Festival at this year’s Girls’ Festival, young women and girls explored activities that opened them up to their own emotions and the emotions of others. They wrote grateful letters to share with their loved ones, played the popular “Emo Heads Up” game to brainstorm situations that bring up different emotions, and they created Circles of Belonging to recognize all of the parts of their community in which they are loved.

 

In the Shine Bright Lantern activity, volunteers asked one girl, “Like a lantern that shines light into a room, what do YOU want to shine into the world?” She drew a detailed scene of the ocean and explained to the volunteer that she wants to make the world a better place by saving the oceans.

According to World Health Organization: 1 in 8 kids are suffering with mental health issues: bullying, self-esteem, anxiety. POP-UP Festival is a free volunteer led event to build emotional intelligence & mental health through play based activities, adaptable to any setting. The digital kit teaches empathy, friendship, optimism, goal setting & emotional literacy, growing lifelong skills. When kids learn to identify & share feelings they have the power to change the future.

Can you imagine a world in which girls felt empowered to be their authentic selves? A world in which they felt their talents and wellbeing were respected as equally as their male counterparts? POP-UP Festivals and Girls’ Festival help make this world a reality by bringing girls together into a space of self-reflection, connection, and aspirations.

This is the best day of my life. I never want to leave!

Each year, the Girls’ Festival buses in girls who want to come to the festival but don’t have the means to do so. One elementary school girl shared shared that the Girls’ Festival was the best day of her life. POP-UP Festivals and the Girls’ Festival value hands-on learning, so that lessons about career paths and empathy feel like play.

You Belong.

The Circles of Belonging activity from POP-UP Festivals helped girls at the Girls’ Festival identify all the communities of which they are a part. A feeling of belonging is a key component for any child to thrive. The girl in the photo shares that she feels loved by her mom, dad, and friends. In challenging times, she knows from whom she can seek support. The Girls’ Festival and POP-UP Festivals bring children together with the adults in their lives so that they can all learn how to better support each other.

Want to empower girls to feel their emotions + improve mental health? We need your help!

We are astonished by the overwhelming POP-UP action. So many dedicated people creating wonderful events for children! To see even more events and hear firsthand the impact POP-UP is making for children around the world checkout our FB page 
 
We’d like to take POP-UP Festivals up another level next year (more training and support to mentors, methods to connect regions, new activities, and more!) And for the first time we are looking to Crowdfund the project for the month of December.
 
Your help would be greatly appreciated — donations of any size are welcome, but our priority is growing the number of donors… so one of the best ways to help is by inviting your circle of supporters to join us.  We’re looking for your connections and enthusiasm. 
Maria Jackson