Current situation and main challenges
Over the past three years there has been a steady tendency for increasing the impact of stereotypes for female beauty, public notions about the “perfect and proportionate body” and fatal prejudices that have a very negative effect on young women. These stereotypes affect directly the young girls and teenage girls who keep unhealthy diets and change their bodies not because they want to be healthy, but because of the necessity to fit within the frames of certain public beauty ideals. Most girls think that it is their physical appearance that determines their value as human beings; they have a low self-esteem and become victims of the industry which sells “beauty”. At 15, they are already familiar with all kinds of anti-cellulite gels, they use bust-firming creams, they dream of silicon implants and they get involved in the vicious circle of myths about how women should look. This rising tendency affects strongly young girls’ participation in decision-making processes, as they believe they should first try to fit the public norms of beauty, and then, having the right appearance, they will get the career of their dreams.
The goal of this program is to develop a new attitude of girls and young women to themselves. To help them free themselves from the existing public models for beauty and to encourage them to form models of their own, based on a healthy way of life and adequate to the individual characteristics of each girl. The implementation of this program will enhance the confidence of girls and young women and will help them to form a positive and self-assertive attitude to themselves. It will also form regular cultural, nutritive and sport habits in life of young women and girls.
Our goal
To support small NGOs working on young women’s empowerment.
To form regular cultural, nutrive and sport habits in young women’s and girl’s life.
Strategy for achieving our goal
- By organizing a grant-making competition and granting at least 5 projects proposed by youth initiative groups and organizations.
- Focusing the public attention on the issues related to the public norms, standards and models for beauty and their impact on girls’ minds.
- Preparation of a profile of girls and young women and identification of the real impact of the media, social environment and upbringing on the formation of their nutritive, sport and cultural habits.
Through the concrete work of the Grantees, BFW expects to achieve shifts in definition of the problem and changes in behavior of the target groups.
Target group
Girls and women between 16 – 35
