A project designed to help rural teenage girls in the Goderich area overcome poverty is being recognized at a special United Nations Youth Assembly today in New York.
The University of Guelph’s Rural Women Making Change group involved high school students and provided the young women with opportunities to deal with and overcome some of the economic disadvantages associated with living in a rural area.
Pam Hanington is one of the researchers involved in the Goderich project.
She and says by starting up a local rural focused magazine, these young women were able to find their voice and address some issues that were of a concern to them.
She says many of the magazines aimed at teenage girls these days are focused on people living in a urban setting and don’t address some of the issues young women living in smaller rural communities face on a day to day basis.
Hanington says these rural girls needed answers to questions dealing with health relationships, isolation and poverty and school was an obvious place to start building this support network.
She says the GURAL program focuses on giving at risk young women a chance to get involved in hands on projects designed to help them deal with add overcome economic disadvantages.
Hanington young women face gender barriers everywhere not just in Ontario and their work in helping girls in Goderich deal with poverty is a good example of a program that can be applied anywhere in the world.