In the run-up to International Women’s Day the young women and girls participating in our EmpowHER Legacy Project, in partnership with Empowerment Charity and UK Youth, took the train down to London for a weekend of sightseeing, celebrations and comparisons of street safety.

The EmpowHER project has been running at The Boathouse Youth for the last 12-months and has been a perfect example of how young people (and in this case, specifically young women) can be a force for social good when given the tools to participate.

Young women have reported to their Youth Workers that they are sexually harassed on a daily basis in the form of wolf-whistles, crude comments and inappropriate touching. The EmpowHER Girls have campaigned by marching through the streets of Blackpool, creating posters to be displayed across all the town’s schools and created a video which has already been shown at the “It Stops Now” conference at The Village Hotel earlier this week.

Hollie Hendrie, Project Officer at UK Youth said “I’ve had the pleasure of supporting The Boathouse Youth through their EmpowHER Journey. The social action they have done is out of this world amazing. For these girls to be campaigning and fighting for the rights of themselves and those around them is truly inspirational. The work they have done is testament to themselves and the hard work of the staff at The Boathouse Youth – especially Kayleigh Smith and Sarah Lindsay.

One of the trip’s highlights was a West End night-out to see ‘& Juliet’ – an alternative take on the Shakespeare classic which explores what could have happened had Juliet not died, and sees the female protagonist take full charge of her future.

The EmpowHER Girls are now taking a short-break from the project, but it couldn’t end without everything being recorded in a scrapbook.