Cultivating Girls’ Resilience
Kathy Weston has over 15 years experience as a social researcher with
a particular interest in parenting, education and family life. She
currently works as a motivational speaker and is passionate about
bridging the gap between academic research and parenting.
The number of out-of-school girls worldwide has dropped by 79
million in the last 20 years (UNICEF, 2020). Yet, as access to education
improves around the world for girls and young women, we have
another fight on our hands. There is a pressing need to recognise
girls’ resilience, sustain it and ensure that optimal conditions exist
for girls to thrive emotionally, academically and in the digital world.
We know that girls are generally less resilient than boys, and that
their mental and emotional wellbeing is declining, with suicide the
second leading cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15-19
worldwide (UNICEF).
In the UK, 30% of 15 year old girls experience high levels of emotional
difficulties, as opposed to 18% of boys, and for girls, unlike boys,
emotional problems increase with age (HBSC, 2020). Teen girls are
struggling with their body image (only 49% of 15 year old girls think
that their body is ‘about the right size’), rising anxiety, perfectionism
and the unique challenges that come with access to social media
(OFCOM, 2020). They worry more than boys, and can struggle to
communicate with parents, particularly with fathers. 50% of girls
feel significant academic pressure (only 30% of boys feel the same)
and girls are less likely to enjoy school. Girls also engage in fewer
behaviours that promote health. There appear to be universal
challenges associated with moving from girl to womanhood in the
21st Century.
Part and parcel of any educational programme worldwide, should be
a focus on resilience. What does it mean to be resilient? It means
being a ‘thinking scientist’ and staying curious. It means remaining
flexible and open to others’ perspectives. It means not repeating
things that you know don’t work, reframing challenge as opportunity
and maintaining a sense of optimism, humour and hope about the
future.
Cultivating positivity may seem challenging given the contexts
that some young women find themselves in, but we need to aim
high. All young people should understand that there is a proactive
component in resilience. We decide if we are resilient; paying careful
note to the times when we demonstrated it by overcoming difficulties
and barriers.
Agency is important when cultivating resilience. Young women
don’t need other people to fix or mollycoddle them. They need to
know that they have personal power and should strive to reach the
multiple options, choices and opportunities available to them. Our
role is to create pathways which enable them to do this. We must
ensure that they are conscious of the family and community values
that can psychologically anchor them, give them access to positive
role models, give effective praise when they demonstrate resilience
and provide them with opportunities to experience intellectual and
physical challenge. Girls also need to be conscious of the threats
to their own personal resilience. Self-awareness is key and should
be facilitated by as supportive a network as possible. Behind
every resilient girl, is someone saying “I believe in you, now give it
a go!”.
From Engage issue 20.
An article related to this topic is How does Body Confidence Affect Online Learning in Today’s Pandemic?
DR KATHY WESTON • October 13, 2021
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity.
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here
This summed up to me about why I volunteer for the Hands Up Project. HUP is a charity trust which, through its network of volunteers, connects children around the world with young people in Palestine. By means of online interaction, drama and storytelling activities, it enables the use of creativity and selfexpression to promote mutual understanding, personal growth, and the development of English language skills. I joined HUP in 2020 during COVID. After going to Palestine in 2017, I wanted to get more involved in working with Palestinian children in schools. HUP gave me the opportunity to link up with schools in the West Bank and Gaza. Every week I’d tell them stories from all over the world, then we’d discuss it, play games and I’d get them to retell it. Sometimes we would work from their coursebook English for Palestine’ in mutual team teaching sessions with their teacher. The simple act of telling a story became much more than entertainment. It became connection, healing, and a bridge to the world beyond their immediate reality to help them improve their language skills, and to give them a platform to speak about their lives in a language that connects them to people everywhere. I loved it, every week, seeing their smiling faces on the screen and building long lasting friendships with their teachers. I even went to Gaza in 2023 and met some of the kids I’d only seen on Zoom. It was a beautiful experience and something I will never forget. As hostilities escalated, I lost contact with everyone. I thought about where the kids were and what had happened to them. As I watched schools being bombed, universities flattened, and people killed in their thousands, I thought about where the kids I’d met were and what was happening to them. I kept in contact with many of the teachers I knew and heard daily news of displacement, destruction, hunger and bombing. Recently, I’ve started to link up again with children in Gaza, and it feels wonderful to be back helping them learn after being denied an education for over two years. Connecting with children in Palestine is more than just words. When a child in Palestine confidently tells their story to someone on the other side of the world, bridges are built, empathy grows, and the world gains a fuller picture of childhood in contexts far from peace and privilege. My work with these children is rooted in the belief that education and voice are inseparable. Through storytelling and English language learning, I witness children not just learning new vocabulary, but reclaiming their narratives, believing in their potential, and finding human connection in a world they perceive has abandoned them. And more than anything, this work reminds us all that children — everywhere — deserve to learn, to speak, and to be heard. Links to HUP information, books and resources: The Hands Up Project BY SUSAN PIPER Susan Piper is currently an ESOL teacher in Oldham, Greater Manchester and has worked in education for over 30 years. She is also a volunteer for the Hands Up Project and is the International Solidarity Officer and President of her NEU district. She believes in quality education for all and aims to make her lessons creative and inclusive so that effective language learning can take place.
