Giving Voice to the Voiceless

I am Eastern born and Western bred with a global vision to transform our world for the world’s poorest girls. I am President, Founding Director of 4Girls GLocal Leadership (4GGL). 4GGL is an innovative model with a “glocal” approach (think global, act local) to ignite the voice and the leadership potential of girls and young women in developing countries.

4GGL is also a collective voice across generations, united globally, that recognizes that poor girls are valuable. I launched 4GGL at the 2008 Women’s Social Leadership Award in London as I recognized that giving girls a voice is my calling and 4GGL is my gift back to the world.

My story began in South Korea. As a baby, I lost my father and overnight, I became poor because I was a girl. The value of a girl child was solely dependent on her father and without my father, I was not valuable to my society.

My life and my “worthiness” changed, again overnight, when I moved to the United States. I met Barbara Crocker, my mentor and role model of women’s leadership. She took me to the projects of Houston, Texas, and not by words but by action, she demonstrated how I, a poor immigrant girl raised by a widowed mother, can make a difference in my community. (Full story: http://blumail.org/shareastory/index.php/stories/read/34)

Nearly 30 years of serving impoverished communities and seeing the same devaluing of poor girls across the urban slums of America to those in developing countries, I took action. 4GGL is not just an organization. It is a social change movement to value and invest in the world’s poorest girls.

Prior to 4GGL, I have brought the voice of girls, nationally and globally. For the U.S. Secretary of Health, Office on Women’s Health, I created the first national girls' advisory group not only to provide vital feedback on programs and issues in the U.S. but also to engage them in global health issues girls in Afghanistan and other developing nations face. Their powerful voice resulted in a White House Award and a wholistic program ranked #1 for girls' health information by Google, MSN, Yahoo! and AOL. Then at the United Nations, I, along with 1,000+ girl-serving NGOs, worldwide, created the first girls’ platform at the 51st session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

I would contribute to World Pulse’s mission by cultivating the voice of the existing World Pulse community, as well as, bringing others to the community. Currently, the goal of 4GGL is to train local trainers – young women – in Pakistan and Nepal and then, for them to branch out and reach 20,000 girls (10,000 in Pakistan, 10,000 in Nepal).

Focusing on voices, 4GGL’s foundation is the voice of wisdom (older women we call “Sofias”) and with the voice of energy (college women) we bring the powerful voice of our future – the largest girl generation that our world has ever seen. I look forward to working with World Pulse to make this a reality for 600 million girls in the developing world....one girl at time.

Shalom שָׁלוֹם, Salaam سلام , Peace and best,
Jin

Jin In
President, Founding Director
4Girls GLocal Leadership (4GGL.org)
Inspiring girls, Transforming the world

Skype ID: iamthechange