2012: Year of the Girl

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In 2012, Girl Scouts of the USA celebrates its centennial and is launching the boldest cause campaign dedicated to girls’ leadership issues in the nation’s history. As we launch this cause, we are asking all members of society to help girls achieve their full leadership potential.

Girl Scouts will use the occasion of its 100th birthday to incite a monumental shift in the way we support girls in this country, and seek to get the issue of girls’ leadership on the national agenda.

Katie Couric spoke about this on Good Morning America on January 31:

The cause, ToGetHerThere, will help break down societal barriers that hinder girls from leading and achieving the highest ranks in all fields and industries, from science and technology to business and government.

Both Girl Scouts’ own research, as well as a third-party study by GfK Roper demonstrates that despite advances by women in business, politics, arts, law, and medicine, girls opt out of leading: one in five doesn’t believe she has what it takes to lead, and 61 percent of girls are either deeply ambivalent about leadership or say it’s not important to them at all. If this continues unchecked, millions of our girls may not reach their full potential as leaders in our society. Our cause will seek to alter this pattern.

At the helm of the initiative, which has as its goal the creation of balanced leadership in a single generation, is Girl Scouts’ new CEO, Anna Maria Chávez. Anna Maria, a Yale graduate and the daughter of migrant farm workers in the Southwest, understands that girls need critical support at a young age to become the future leaders of society.

To provide this support, we must start with all girls now—not just girls involved with Girl Scouting—and ask all adults to help girls achieve their full potential, in any way they can.

ToGetHerThere kicks off formally on January 31 in New York with a panel event at the TimesCenter. We’ll have CEO Anna Maria Chávez and female and male leaders from a variety of fields—including media, finance, and sports—discussing leadership issues facing girls today and our new research findings.

February 1, we bring it right here to Washington, DC. We’ll ask Congressional leadership to get involved with the ToGetHerThere cause and to stand with Girl Scouts in support of girls. These events will serve as just the start of Girl Scouts’ larger cause effort.

Learn more about ToGetHerThere at www.ToGetHerThere.org.

Posted: Jan 31, 2012