I want other girls who have dreams to know that you are never falling down. You need to be focused because there will always be rocks in the road that will try to stop you from reaching your goals - but you just have to focus...and always have music in your heart.
Hillary
AGE: 16
FROM: Guatemala
VISION: Future Rock Star
All girls have the right to determine their own path in life; they have the right to be free from violence; they have the right to equitable opportunities and choices.

Vision Not Victim works with girls, parents, and community leaders so that girls can realize these rights.

Vision Not Victim is all about this girl-driven process. It is always adapted to specifically meet the goals of each group of girls and our partner organizations, and it can be used to enhance, begin, or evaluate existing programs. 

The Vision Not Victim Process Includes:

Building Skills & Power
Creative workshops support girls in growing their capacity to vision and aspire, exploring their imagination and identity, building confidence, and developing strategic life skillls and leadership skills that will help them stay safe, healthy, advocate for themselves, and pursue their potential.
Histories of Oppression & Feminist Action
Through healing and social justice education rooted in a feminist framework, girls build critical thinking skills, analyze the systems of oppression that operate on their lives, and explore and connect with the women leaders, activists, and fighters of past generations. 
Mentorship
A series of mentors, successful women from the community, connect with girls, expose girls to various life tracks and a wider range of possibilities, sharing their own realities, how challenges were overcome, and provide them with encouragement, feedback, and guidance.
Collaborative Media
Girls use different types of media to challenge stereotypes, represent their own stories, and show their visions for the future. They design and direct photo shoots where they pose as their future selves - achieving a goal. 

See some examples of girls’ photo shoots and behind the scenes snapshots.
Community Action
The visions, views, and voices of girls are used to challenge norms surrounding girls. Facilitators lead discussions with parents and leaders about supporting girls’ aspirations, keeping them safe, and supporting girls’ education and greater opportunities. These conversations culminate in specific and concrete actions to promote gender equality in the community.
National & International Advocacy
Girls are the best advocates for their own rights. Through strategy sessions and advocacy workshops, girls choose priority issues, create messaging, and design a social norms marketing campaign or advocacy platform that draws on their vision images. Girls together with their communities chose advocacy priorities, design, and carry forward their action plan in support with partner organizations and Vision Not Victim.
Global Movement
Vision Not Victim is a global movement connecting girls from different regions to use their power as a group to fight for their rights. Through international conferences that bring girls together, social and traditional media, and a digital platform, girls’ voices are amplified on an international scale, bringing their messages about needs and solutions to policy makers, influencers, other communities, and other girls across the world.

The Power of the Process:

How people view themselves and how they are viewed by others has significant impact; it influences how they act, think, and how others behave towards them. Instead of telling girls, parents, or leaders about the possibilities of girls, Vision Not Victim supports girls in showing their power and potential through visuals and creative media.

They show their hope, light, strength, fight, creativity, leadership and radical imagination. They defy stereotypes, norms, and expectations.

Thus they change themselves, their families, their communities, countries and lead other girls in a similar process of visioning and imagining.

Girls who have participated in Vision Not Victim continue to receive support from our partner organizations long after the project ends, and have gone on to lead, mentor others, attend University, and are continually striving to realize their aspirations.

Seeing the transformation of their daughters, families and leaders have committed to not marrying their daughters, keeping them safe, and supporting their education and professional goals.

Exhibits of girls’ vision images in US Congress, at major international conferences, at museums and in public spaces have challenged and influenced policy, funding, and action around girls’ rights, education, and protection from violence.  
Here a participant's mother reacts to seeing her daughter’s vision captured in a photograph. What followed were conversations about what it would take to support her daughter to achieve her dreams. The girls were each given copies of their photographs to share with family, friends, and their community which challenged perceived norms about the potential, vision, and power of adolescent girls.
Here a Congressional Advisor and US Congressman McGovern send messages of thanks and encouragement back to the girls who participated in Vision Not Victim in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These girls' vision images were shown at a Congressional Hearing on global gender-based violence and exhibited on Capitol Hill. 
"This week was the best week of my life. I learned from my teachers, from friends, from mentors and I am inspired. I have learned a lot from the program. For example, now I am encouraged to talk and be in a community. Before this I was stuck...now I know how to step into my future and that I am allowed to want things for my life 
" 
– Shamila
AGE: 17 FROM: Afghanistan
VISION: Future Police Officer