Purposeful is a feminist hub for girls activism, rooted in Africa and working all around the world. We believe that another world is not only possible, it is already being built right here and now, in the ways that girls are organising with each other, imagining with each other, pushing us all a little further towards liberation.,
Paradigmatic
Their focus on power and girls is a way to get to the root of “the interlocking forces of patriarchy, imperialism and white supremacy” and how these show up in concrete ways in girls’ lives, e.g. in issues of health, legislation, and other (social, cultural, and economic) forms of violence and discrimination.
Their strategy, vision, and theory of change are designed around the goal of world transformation, through their power-building lens and approach of transforming existing power dynamics and structures with and for girls.
Their whole approach is based on the understanding that liberation (and thus any meaningful kind of long-term transformation) is collective.
Integrated
Their Theory of Change is informed by Gender@Work, a 4-quadrant framework integrating individual-systemic and formal-informal axes.
They work with an analysis of individual, collective, communal, and structural change as “overlapping multidirectional and mutually reinforcing”.
Their 8 core values include: “Many ways of knowing”, “Deep embodiment”, “Centering lived expertise”, “Cultivating radical imagination”, and “Joy as resistance”
Strategic focus on girls’ rights and wellbeing, including self-care practices and the necessary integration of the latter in capacity building and leadership development.
Pragmatic
Their mission (Strategic Framework 2021-2025) is: “Girl activists and their allies have access to the resources, networks and platforms they need to power their activism and remake the world for themselves”.
One of their core values is “Taking bold action”.
Key Publications
On approaches to funding: Resourcing Girls’ Resistance in Sierra Leone: Emerging Lessons from the With and For Girls Fund; Resourcing Response and Resistance, 5 Years’ Of Resourcing Girls’ Resistance: Moving Money to the Margins 2018-2022.
On approaches to power-building work: Building Girls’ Power: Perspectives on Theory and Practice In Working With Adolescent Girls; Inside the Circle: Building Power Through Girls’ Collectives in Sierra Leone
On their strategy and theory of change: Purposeful’s Theory of Change, Purposeful Strategic Framework: Remaking the World with and for Girls; Our Learning Agenda: Reclaiming and Organising Our Many Ways of Knowing
Additional Notes
They have 2 offices: Sierra Leone and London. They have grantees all over the world. See: https://wearepurposeful.org/who-we-are/where-we-work/. Their work is centred through a “power-building lens – redistributing power assets, building collective power, organising power holders and transforming power structures.”