Girls often face barriers as they work towards achieving their full potential, including strong cultural norms favouring boys education, gender-based violence, child marriage and pregnancy, lack of menstrual supplies and scarcity of separate bathrooms. The HerStory Initiative combines innovative storytelling programs with engaging media outreach to listen, share and respond to the stories of girls. The goal of HerStory is to inspire action that will move the world toward greater justice, health and global well-being for all. HerStory Initiative builds life skills in girls through LitClubs which offers girls safe space, structured settings to read, write, and raise their voices.

The funds provided by LitWorld and Global GlOW are used to implement the following activities: 1) Provide mentoring and ongoing support: 8 LitCLubs after school program created with 160 girls and 8 mentors (1 mentor: 20 girls). 1h:30minutes weekly Litclub sessions for girls organised in Reading, Writing, Discussing, creating (Art), Expressing (Music/Games), and Becoming (Theater). Four 1-day mentor training workshops organised annually for LitClub Mentors to provide mentoring and continues support to our club girls based on 7 strengths: Belonging, Curiosity, Friendship, Kindness, Confidence, Courage and Hope. 2) Organise Read Aloud: During weekly LitClub sessions and World Read Aloud days. Mentors select an appropriate read aloud book or poem and read aloud to the girls in groups of 20 girls. Mentors also make up a story that ties in the Strength of the day with an experience the girls can relate to. Mentors and girls share and encourage a love of reading. We celebrate the power of words and create a community of readers taking action to show the world that the right to literacy belongs to all people on World Read aloud days. 3) Facilitate creative writing/thinking/arts/games: Girls are introduced by mentors to a range of theories of change that link creative engagement with strategic thinking around the 7 strengths during club weekly sessions; the girls think critically about artistic and cultural interventions; design, assess, enact, document and/or facilitate creative activities that contribute to more just and less violent communities. 4) Organise Community building activities: On a monthly basis, girls engage in a game or activity geared towards community building; Environmental, assisting the less priveleged. 5) During long holidays, a literacy-based experiential education holidays program is carried out. By combining a traditional camp experience with effective literacy, life skills training and empowerment, LitClub workshops, building the resilience they need to carry through the coming year. 6) Every October 11th. We mobilize HerStory community and supporters, host Story Summits, led by trained mentors and volunteers that allow women and girls to share their stories and learn from one another's experiences. Together we raise our voices on behalf of all the world's girls so that they can build fierce, fearless futures, lit from within. 7) Mobilise successive women to share their stories of strength and overcoming challenges that inspires others. The story summit takes place annually in August. 8) Provide education on sexual and reproductive health rights and provide menstrual supplies

The initiative is funded by LitWorld and Global GLOW in the USA. These two orgainsations provide funding for the activies and WVED Cameroon does the implementation of the HerStory program in Cameroon in collaboration with the Delegation of women Empowerment and Family Mezam Division North West Region Cameroon. HerStory Initiative program is centred around LitClub curriculum which empower, mentor and equip girls with life skills necessary for their development through storytelling, creative expression, transformational literacy and mentorship in a safe place. LitClub Curriculum Sessions are structured around LitWorlds 7 Strengths, or foundational ideas that we believe guide girls understanding of themselves and the world. The 7 Strengths: Belonging, Curiosity, Friendship, Kindness, Confidence, Courage and Hope help to build the girls growing sense of their identities. There is a standardized curriculum developed by LitWorld. The curriculum provides detailed lesson plans for each weekly workshop. Each unit includes five core lessons: Writing, Discussing, creating (Art), Expressing (Music/Games), and Becoming (Theatre). The HerStory Program creates opportunities for women and girls to share their stories of achieving successes and overcoming challenges, supported by powerful mentorship in a safe place.

World Vision for Education and Development (WVED) Cameroon LitWorld USA Global Girls Leading Our World (USA) A World at School