Adolescent Girls Advocacy and Leadership Initiative (AGALI)

The Adolescent Girls Advocacy and Leadership Initiative (AGALI), implemented by the International Health Programs of the Public Health Institute, strengthens advocacy efforts and leadership capacity to improve the economic circumstances and educational opportunities for adolescent girls and young women in Latin America and Africa.  Building a movement for adolescent girls, AGALI creates workshops grounded in principles of diversity, culturally-relevant expertise, and collaborative leadership to advocate for improved laws, policies and government funding to fulfill the needs of and creating change for the most vulnerable adolescent girls. AGALI is currently working in countries across Africa and Latin America. 

In the fall of 2011, AGALI fellows successfully advocated for the Liberian Senate to pass the Liberian Children’s Act – an important legal framework to protect the rights of children, and which includes a focus on adolescent girls. Adolescent girls make up part of an entire generation of young people that grew up without access to basic education, health services, and skill-building and employment opportunities and have been vulnerable to domestic work and sexual exploitation and to harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation/cutting and child marriage.  Among other policies, the law bans forced marriages, child betrothals, and child marriages.

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