Tomorrow is International Day of the Girl, and there couldn’t be a more fitting moment to launch our new website, I’m Here for Her.
For more than three decades, the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) has worked to protect the rights of displaced women, children, and youth, and to transform the humanitarian system so that it is more responsive to their needs. From the beginning, WRC recognized that adolescent girls are among the least visible yet most vulnerable groups in emergencies. WRC was one of the first organizations to call attention to the unique risks adolescent girls face in crisis: child marriage, early pregnancy, school dropout, and their lifelong health and safety consequences.
Over the years, we have built an evidence base showing that when adolescent girls are meaningfully included in program design, they thrive. Our I’m Here Approach, piloted in our first location in South Sudan in 2014 and refined in more than 30 communities since, helps humanitarian actors work with adolescent girls to ensure they do not get left behind. By listening to girls directly and co-designing solutions with them, services reach them faster, risks are reduced, and their confidence and leadership grow.
Today, the need could not be more urgent. Global crises, from conflict to climate change, are displacing millions of adolescents, with girls shouldering the heaviest burden. Yet less than two percent of international development assistance is dedicated to adolescent health. Recent funding cuts have forced the suspension of critical programs, affecting more than 1.1 million children across 23 countries. WRC has documented how abrupt US foreign assistance cuts threaten gender-based violence prevention and response services, programs that are lifesaving for adolescent girls in humanitarian settings.
That’s why we created I’m Here for Her, a platform to build critical support for adolescent girls in humanitarian settings. The website is an information hub and a space where advocates, donors, and practitioners can learn, connect, and act. It showcases the voices and leadership of adolescent girls themselves, shares practical tools from the I’m Here Approach, and highlights stories of impact.
Through I’m Here for Her, we aim to grow a movement: one that recognizes girls as experts on their own lives, invests in their futures, and ensures that, even in emergencies, no adolescent girl is invisible.
The I’m Here Approach has already proven what’s possible: programs that identify and center adolescent girls, reduce child marriage, increase access to sexual and reproductive health care, and open pathways to education and economic opportunity. But the demand far outpaces current funding. With investment, we can reach hundreds of thousands more girls.
Join Us
WRC’s vision is a humanitarian system where adolescent-responsive programming is the norm. By scaling proven approaches like I’m Here, and by supporting youth-led networks, we can shift power to displaced communities and adolescent girls themselves. But we cannot do it alone. We need partners, funders, and champions who believe, as we do, that investing in adolescent girls is one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways to drive gender equality and lasting change.
Visit www.imhereforher.org to explore, learn, and join us. Together, we can ensure that every girl, everywhere, is seen, heard, and supported.