Earlier this month Goals4Girls launched their ‘My hair, my identity’ campaign centred around their young women and girls after a G4G participant had been subjected to systemic racism.
After being told their was ‘too big’, they were excluded for a week and upon their return spent another week in internal isolation – a room where students complete their working independently, separated from their peers throughout the school day.
“‘We created this campaign to help young women like our participant *Aisha embrace their hair, but above all else, their identities, cultures and histories” says G4G’s Founder & CEO Francesca Brown.
“As an organisation, we understand that it isn’t fair for us to be educating Aisha on how to act when in a situation like the one she found herself in, but that institutions like her school, should in fact be educated about the importance of hair for children of colour.
It’s a long journey, but this is how we see ourselves combatting systemic racism; by equipping our young people with the skills needed to navigate a system that wasn’t built for them so that eventually, they can be the change that we all need.
Beyond every braid, curl, lock and strand is a sacred story for women of colour – an even though it is ‘just hair’ to so many, it’s so much more than that, and we are about to share this through Goals4Girls”.
Over the course of two weeks G4G shared ‘hair stories’ from their participants and wider community via socials.
They had soldiers from the US talk about the importance of hair in relation to identity, Black female entrepreneurs speak about their hair journeys and the challenges they have faced because of it as well as ex-Spurs goalkeeper Chloe Morgan share what her hair means to her.
The focal point of the campaign was the release of G4G’s discussion-based video, where several of their participants shared thoughts, feelings and experiences of discrimination as a result of hair.
G4G’s work was discussed in Dazed Beauty and The Metro, as well as gaining support from a range of Black beauty and hair brands like Shea Moisturiser, Cantu UK and Dove.
This campaign shed some light on G4G’s newly developed ‘Identity’ Unit, helping young women and girls to fully embrace who they are.
*Name changed at the request of participant’s parents.