There is a passionate and peaceful revolution afoot driven by girls as young as 10 years of age. These resolute youngsters and teenagers are banding together to transform the world, leveraging their energy and intelligence, creativity and confidence, determination and dreams, to make a difference in their communities.
Wonder Girls: Changing Our World, by Paola Gianturco and Alex Sangster, is a book documenting these girl-led groups, which are improving health, education, gender equality, and the environment; and stopping child marriage, domestic violence, child trafficking, and war. The book features fifteen groups of girls, all age 10 to 18, who are tackling challenges in thirteen countries in the Middle East, Asia, North and Latin America, Africa, and Oceania.
Between 2013-2016, author and photographer Paola Gianturco and her 11-year-old granddaughter, and photographer Alex Sangster, teamed up to interview and photograph 102 girls, each of whom tells her own story in her own words. Wonder Girls is the third in a triptych by Paola Gianturco. Women who Light the Dark (powerHouse Books, 2007) told about women activists. Grandmother Power: A Global Phenomenon (powerHouse Books, 2012), described grandmother activists.
In a foreword in the book, Musimbi Kanyoro, President and CEO of The Global Fund for Women writes: “Too many programs that claim to ‘empower’ or ‘uplift’ are long on rhetoric and short on giving girls real power and space. Not so with the initiatives in this book. It features girls who are creative, gutsy, and determined to be responsible citizens … We must enable all girls everywhere to have such voice, confidence and agency.”
Paola Gianturco and Alex Sangster, Wonder Girls: Changing our World
Published by powerHouse Books
$49.95 US/CAN
