Girl Up Club inspires confidence in young women throughout the HC community

HC has had many new contributions to its club roster this year. One of the most prominent is the new Girl Up club. Girl Up is an organization that was started by the United Nations and has clubs all over the world. It’s goal is to help empower girls and make sure they are educated, healthy, and safe.

“It’s necessary to help these girls in adverse conditions,” Girl Up President Ella Franklin said. “There’s a lot of need outside the US.”

There are many reasons why students would want to join this club, and yes, boys can join too.

“It’s a good way to become active in the community,” Girl Up Vice President Elizabeth Salamanca said. “It will empower some of the girls and boys who join. We want boys to join too, it’s necessary we have representatives from both sides.”

Members of Girl Up will do many things to help not only HC’s community, but the world.

“We raise money for the United Nations (UN), a foundation dedicated to maintaining international peace and security, so that they can put it towards helping girls in other countries,” Salamanca said. “We do smaller scale stuff in Lexington as well, things that directly affect our community.”

This club started because of the UN, they gave Franklin and Salamanca the information and opportunity to start Girl Up at HC.

“Sophomore year I thought I should start some sort of female empowerment club,” Franklin said. “Girl Up seemed really fun.”

The club has already started helping our community and other communities too.

“We’ve already held a drive for baby wipes and diapers, supplies The Nest needs,” Salamanca said. The Nest is a center for women, children, and families in need. “We also want to become pen pals with a Girl Up club in Kenya.”

The club is planning on selling chocolate bars to help raise money for the UN Foundation. They also plan to have a swap shop towards the end of the semester where students and teachers can donate items that will then be sold to raise money.

Raising money isn’t their only goal, however, they also want to help raise awareness for underprivileged girls all across the world.

“Our goal is to spread awareness of condition of girls in other places and improve conditions,” Franklin said. “One of the goals we want to talk about is education.”

Just like Franklin said education is a huge problem for so many underprivileged girls. Right now Girl Up is helping to raise money for girls in Ghana, which is located on the Gulf of Guinea in Africa.

“Right now we’re collecting money to fund construction for girls in Ghana who don’t have any bathrooms,” Salamanca said. “It’s very important that they have bathrooms in their school.”

Many students are excited that there is a club like this at HC and they can’t wait to help the community.

“I’m so glad Henry Clay has a club like this now,” Girl Up member Hannah Shapiro said. “It’s very rewarding to be helping our community and the world.”

So if you’re considering joining a club be sure to check out Girl Up. They’re having a fundraising night on October 4th at Puccini’s in Chevy Chase, 20% of profits go to Girl Up!