We are creating a community of girls and women where we recognize that each person already has the strength and experience to become a leader and agent of change. We are committed to ensuring those participating girls and women are active partners in program design and service delivery.

Girls Incorporated of the Central Coast delivers a constellation of programs that focus on leadership and self-empowerment. These programs offer girls specific knowledge regarding reproductive health, risky behaviors, healthy relationships, and academic pursuits, while developing leadership, goal setting and decision-making skills. Beyond these basic elements, Girls Inc. has developed components of each program that offer young women the opportunity to be leaders, role models, teachers, mentors and activists.

At Girls Inc., young women see themselves as agents of social change, committed to helping others and making a positive difference in their communities. We believe in creating partnerships with adults in which young women can demonstrate their skills and abilities. By engaging them as the architects and partners in program implementation, we tap into their inherent skills, knowledge and determination. By calling them to action as resources, we not only help them to cultivate positive perceptions of their abilities and skills, but also send a clear message to the larger community about the important role they can play.

Our programs, offered in an all-girl environment, actively engage young women by providing them with the tools and knowledge to make changes happen. They are hired as facilitators for programs aimed at younger girls – a model for leadership that not only provides these young women with practical skills and experience, but allows us to reach a broad spectrum of girls. The work of Girls Inc. could not be accomplished without the skills of our youth leaders, who make a yearlong commitment to sharing their knowledge and passion for these programs with girls younger than they. These young women are actively involved in program design, planning and implementation, creating a shared power — equality of responsibility, accountability and control. These elements are an integral part of every program we deliver.

Girls Inc. began in 1999 as one program, Education, Careers, Health, Opportunities (ECHO), in one high school. In 2001, the ACTION Council of Monterey County, adopted ECHO as its major project with the intention of expanding services, developing organizational capacity and sustainability and — when ready — spinning it off as an independent nonprofit organization. In 2003, the programs became a provisional Girls Inc. with an independence date in 2006. In those five years, Girls Inc. has grown to serve more than 400 girls in 15 schools in 5 cities. By 2010, Girls Inc. will offer its programs in San Benito and Santa Cruz as well as Monterey Counties