New AGALI Film Spotlights Success of Guatemalan Girls Trained by the Program

PHI’s Adolescent Girls’ Advocacy and Leadership Initiative (AGALI) has produced a new film that is an “inspiring” look at how powerful girl-led advocacy can be and why we need to invest in it, the English-language Guatemalan magazine Revue reports in its article “Lights, Camera …  Advocacy.”

The film, Poder!, and the Revue article tell the story of two adolescent Gautemalan girls who received advocacy training from AGALI and successfully campaigned for “girl-friendly heatlh and education programs” in the town where they live, Concepcion Chiquirichapa. With additional financial support from AGALI, the girls taught the advocacy training to other 9- to 15-year -old girls to spread knowledge of these skills and strategies further in their community – and then, together, they pushed for improvements in education and health care for girls.

The results were impressive:  Concepcion’s mayor  approved policies that the girls developed and allocated money for a new Municipal Office of Childhood and Adolescence. Two girls AGALI supported were appointed to the Municipal Commission of Children and Youth, “becoming the first girls in Guatemala to sit on a town board of directors,” the article says.

As opposed to traditional documentary approaches that depict girls as victims who are powerfless to the substantial obstacles they face, Poder! shows the girls as leaders and change agents. “This film is not about victims; it is a film about victory,” AGALI director Denise Dunning says in the article.

Poder! will preview in Guatemala and the United States in October.

Read the full article.

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About the photo: Guatemalan girl leaders in Concepcion Chiquirichapa. Photo by Lorena Gomez-Barris of AGALI.