Something within freshman Anna McGuire clicked one day, when she received an email about Girl Up, a worldwide organization run by the United Nations Foundation. The organization provides education and health advice to over 600 million girls in third world countries who seldom have the chance to go to school and often become child brides.
Girl Up aims to support a total of 450 active clubs and schedule 50 meetings in which individual clubs will speak to congressmen to promote “Girls Count,” a foreign affairs bill that will prevent girls in developing countries from being neglected.
“It was really upsetting to me that girls in other countries who are my age could already be married or could be out of school,” McGuire said.
With this in mind, McGuire took initiative and started a Girl Up club at Pyle when she was in seventh grade, and has continued running it since. McGuire is now one of 20 Girl Up teen advisors across the country.
Last weekend, McGuire attended a conference at the U.N. in New York with 17 other new teen advisors and two returning ones who serve as co-chairs. McGuire said she would love to hold a position as co-chair next year.
The advisors celebrated the International Day of the Girl Friday, recognizing the positive changes made in communities all over the world. Saturday, the advisors attended a leadership training session and explored Times Square. Sunday, they divided into committees to set goals for their individual clubs as well as for the organization as a whole.
McGuire said she wants to get more people to join and to set up a new club at Pyle, since the old one has dissolved since the departure of sponsor Ashleigh Townsend.
This year as the president of Whitman’s Girl Up club, McGuire has mapped out a game plan for more advocacy and significant involvement in the organization. So far, the club has fundraised over $500 through a bake sale, and the next event is scheduled to be a group trip to Markoff’s Haunted Forest Oct. 17.
McGuire hopes to connect with other local clubs at Churchill, Georgetown Visitation and Madeira this year at events to discuss the issues facing girls in developing countries.
Teacher sponsor Matthew Bruneel said he admires McGuires work, as well as the organization’s iniative.
“We have done a lot in terms of finding equality between genders,” Bruneel said, “and I think there’s still so much that can be done across the world.”
