Quinta Ola is a Peruvian feminist organization dedicated to promoting, safeguarding, and defending the rights of girls, adolescents, young women, and women in all their diversity. The organization’s programs support building capacity, fostering civic engagement, and generating knowledge on the barriers women and girls face in exercising their rights. On average,the organization impacts 200 girls annually and reaches approximately 100,000 people through digital campaigns.
In Lima Norte, a metropolitan area of Peru, adolescent girls face high rates of gender-based violence. Rights-based services are limited, and stereotypes constrain girls’ autonomy, limit their aspirations, and exclude them from civic and political participation. Families, though often well-intentioned, frequently lack gender-responsive tools to support girls’ development. Adolescent girls remain largely disconnected from women’s movement networks and from the institutional mechanisms designed to protect their rights.
With support from the Girls Opportunity Alliance, Quinta Ola will implement its GirlGov program. In the program, forty girls from Lima Norte will participate in a structured leadership program combining participatory workshops, psychosocial support, and mentoring. The girls will also design and implement advocacy initiatives addressing issues that affect their lives. Parents and caregivers also will participate in workshops and receive psychosocial guidance to strengthen gender-responsive parenting practices, reduce tolerance for violence, and support girls’ autonomy. Through this multi-layered model, the project addresses structural inequality by building the conditions for adolescent girls to actively challenge and transform it.
The project will directly impact 40 adolescent girls and more than 100 community members through in-person activities. By working simultaneously at the individual, relational, and community levels, the project addresses not only the symptoms of gender inequality but also its structural roots. Ultimately, the project aspires to contribute to a broader cultural shift where adolescent girls are recognized, supported, and empowered as legitimate agents of change in their communities.
To learn more about Quinta Ola, please visit the organization’s website and social media pages:
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