Age
15
Country of Residence
Nigeria
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
My idea started with something I saw around me. As teenagers, we talk about many things, but menstruation and puberty are often surrounded by embarrassment, jokes and misinformation. I noticed that some girls were getting information from friends, social media or things they had simply heard, without knowing what was actually true. Sometimes, even asking a simple question about our bodies could feel uncomfortable. I started thinking: what if we had a space where girls our age could talk openly, ask questions without being laughed at, and learn from each other? That was my moment. I started bringing teenagers together for regular conversations about menstrual management, myths and facts, body positivity and growing up. We also created a WhatsApp group so we could stay connected and continue learning between our gatherings. What surprised me was how willing other teenagers were to participate and ask questions once they felt safe. I realized that we don't always need adults to start every conversation. Young people can also create solutions for problems affecting us. GLOW & FLOW grew from that simple idea: if one safe conversation can help a teenager feel less confused or ashamed about their body, imagine what we can do when we share accurate information with many more young people.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
We encourage other teenagers to join by making GLOW & FLOW feel like a space where they can be themselves, ask questions and talk about things they may normally feel shy about. We invite our age mates through our school connections and WhatsApp group, and we encourage members to bring a friend or share useful information with someone who may need it. So far, we have engaged [NUMBER] teenagers through our gatherings and online group. They participate in discussions, ask questions, share their experiences and help us identify the topics and myths that other teenagers need more information about. We want to make this peer-to-peer approach even stronger. With our online toolkit, teenagers will not just be readers; they will become people who can share accurate information with their friends. We will encourage members to share the toolkit in their own WhatsApp groups and other safe online spaces. We also want to invite more teenagers to help us test the toolkit, suggest topics and tell us what is useful or confusing. As the project grows, our five-member teen team will support new peer educators who want to help spread the message. For us, changemaking means giving young people the confidence and tools to help other young people. If one teenager learns something useful and shares it with three friends, the conversation keeps growing.
How many people are on your team?
5
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
GLOW & FLOW is still growing, but we have already seen the difference that a safe space can make. Through our regular teen gatherings and WhatsApp group, we have connected with 105 teenagers aged 13–18 who menstruate. We use these spaces to talk about periods, puberty, myths and facts, body confidence and other questions that teenagers may feel shy asking elsewhere. One of the biggest changes I have noticed is that teenagers are becoming more comfortable speaking up. Girls who were initially quiet have started asking questions, sharing their experiences and correcting myths they have heard. For us, that is impact not just giving someone information, but helping them feel confident enough to use it and share it with others. With the funding, we want to build on this early progress by creating our online GLOW & FLOW toolkit and making it available to many more teenagers. We hope to reach at least 1000 young people through our WhatsApp community, school networks and peer sharing. We will also ask users what they learned, what myths they were able to challenge and whether they feel more confident talking about menstruation, puberty, their bodies and safety. Our goal is for every teenager we reach to leave with better information, more confidence and something useful they can pass on to a friend.
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Pilot-Stage (We’ve tried an activity or two)
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Through GLOW & FLOW, we will create a fun, teen-friendly online toolkit with trusted information on menstruation, puberty, myths and misinformation, body positivity, self-acceptance, consent and staying safe, which we can share with teenagers in our WhatsApp group and with other young people who need a safe place to learn and ask questions.
Project title
GLOW & FLOW: A Teen Space to Learn, Talk & Grow
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Being a teenager can already be confusing because our bodies are changing so much. For girls who menstruate, it can be even harder when periods and puberty are treated as embarrassing topics. Sometimes we hear myths from friends, social media or even older people and believe them because we do not know where to find the right information. I have seen girls feel shy about asking questions about their periods, body changes or things they are experiencing. Some are afraid of being laughed at, while others simply keep quiet when they are confused. I believe this silence can make growing up more stressful than it needs to be. This problem matters to me because I am a teenager too. I know what it feels like to have questions about your body and not always know who you can talk to. I also know that when teenagers feel safe with people their own age, they are more willing to speak, ask questions and learn. With GLOW & FLOW, I want to help make those conversations easier. We want to create a friendly space where teenagers can find accurate information, challenge myths, understand their changing bodies, build confidence, learn about consent and safety, and know that they are not alone.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next year, we want to grow GLOW & FLOW from a small teen-led community into a resource that reaches more teenagers online and in our schools. Our first step will be to work with our WhatsApp group to develop and improve our online toolkit. We will collect questions from teenagers, check the information with our mentor and trusted health educators, and make the content simple, colourful and easy to understand. After creating the toolkit, we will share it regularly in our WhatsApp group and distribute it to other teenage communities, school networks and online youth spaces. We will encourage teenagers to share it with their friends so that accurate information can reach beyond our immediate group. We also plan to continue our bi-monthly teen gatherings, where we can discuss the toolkit answer questions, learn from one another and identify topics that need more attention. Our five-member teen team will share responsibilities for creating content, communicating online, organizing discussions and reaching other young people. As we grow, we hope to connect with more teen educators, schools and youth-friendly health educators who can help us improve our resources and reach more teenagers safely. We will collect feedback from users to understand what they learned and how we can make the toolkit more useful. Our goal is to build a growing network of informed, confident teen
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
What makes GLOW & FLOW different is that it is created with teenagers, not just for teenagers. There are many menstrual-health resources online, but they can feel too formal, complicated or disconnected from what teenagers actually want to ask. Sometimes adults decide what young people need to know without first asking young people what they are confused about. We want to change that. Our online toolkit will grow from real questions and conversations in our teen community. Teenagers in our WhatsApp group will help identify the myths, questions and topics that matter to them, and we will turn them into simple, colourful and easy-to-understand resources. We are also combining online learning with peer conversations. A teenager can read something in the toolkit, bring a question to our WhatsApp group or teen gathering, discuss it with other young people and then share what they have learned with a friend. This creates a cycle of learning instead of a one-time lesson. Another important part of our approach is that we are not only talking about periods. We connect menstruation and puberty with body confidence, self-acceptance, consent, personal boundaries and safety because growing up is about more than one topic. Our innovation is therefore not inventing another menstrual-health booklet. It is creating a living, teen-led resource that grows from our experiences, speaks our language and can be shared easily from one teenager to another. We want young people to be contributors and peer educators, not just people receiving information.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
GLOW & FLOW is a teen-led space where teenagers can learn, ask questions and talk about growing up without feeling judged or embarrassed. We already connect with teenagers aged 13–18 through our school gatherings and WhatsApp group, where we have conversations about menstruation, puberty, myths and facts, body confidence and self-acceptance. With this funding, we want to take what we are learning from these conversations and create a simple, colourful and teen-friendly online toolkit that other young people can easily read and share. The toolkit will cover menstrual management, puberty, common myths and misinformation, body positivity, self-acceptance, consent, personal boundaries and staying safe. We will use simple language, illustrations, questions and myth-versus-fact activities so it feels more like something made by teenagers for teenagers, rather than a textbook. We will first develop the toolkit with input from teenagers in our WhatsApp group. We will ask them what questions they have; what information they find confusing and what topics they want explained better. We will then turn those ideas into the toolkit and share it through our WhatsApp group, school networks and with other teenagers who may benefit from it. Our goal is not only to give teenagers information, but to help them become more comfortable talking about their bodies, questioning misinformation and supporting their friends. We want GLOW & FLOW to grow from a small group of teenagers having conversations into a peer-learning resource that can reach many more young people.
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Our team is made up of five teenage girls who share leadership based on our strengths. One leads the project and coordinates our activities, while others support communication, peer engagement and organizing our teen gatherings and WhatsApp group. We make decisions together and listen to each other’s ideas. We are supported and mentored by the Founder of Empower Network and its five-member management team, who provide guidance, safeguarding and organizational support while allo
