Long Live the Girls is a girls’ empowerment group based in Hawassa, Ethiopia that focuses on building girls’ creative writing skills. The Girl Manifesto is a signature project, which prepares girls and women to engage gender policy through the manifesto as a literary and political form.

In a world where speaking up and out can trigger negative attention and consequences, the Girl Manifesto project makes a difference in the lives of the 33 girls and women who come daily, sometimes from great distances, to participate in our writing workshops and literary readings.

Girls practice the skills and tools necessary to build confidence and speak out on the issues that mattered most to them. The GIRL MANIFESTO book is now in its final stages of production and will be ready for distribution at the end of 2013.

Check out this great video on our project! And follow our work on Facebook at: Long Live the Girls

The Girl Manifesto is an extraordinary achievement – highlighting how collaborators from around the world come together to rally and to amplify girls and women’s voices in Ethiopia — contributing to a growing literary scene in the country. The Girl Manifesto also evidences a wider, international conversation on the power of girls and women to transform their own lives and the worlds around them.

Long Live the Girls was very inspired by the daily actions of Day of the Girl Summit and was proud to contribute to the conversation on gender equality in our own community and online.

On behalf of Break Arts: International Arts & Education Collaborative (www.breakarts.org) as well as Action for Youth and Community Change, we look forward to being part of the change we all want to see in the world — where all people feel free and safe to express themselves.

— Kidest Tariku & Amanda Lichtenstein, Long Live the Girls