This bilingual initiative serves Hispanic girls ages 9-14, their mothers and other caregivers. A public education initiative, it is designed to help them build and enhance their own self-esteem, mental health, decision-making and assertiveness skills, and to prevent the harmful consequences of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs.

The Build Initiative is a multi-state partnership that supports efforts to make sure that children from birth through age five are safe, healthy, eager to learn and ready to succeed in school.

The South has a larger concentration of working poor families, parents with little education and more children without health insurance than in any other region. An August 2002 Children's Defense Fund report urges Congress to add $11.25 billion in child care funding, pass an improved Temporary Assistance for Needy Families bill to help families raise their incomes through work, and maintain Children's Health Insurance Program funding for states to avoid cutbacks in programs targeting families as state revenues shrink.

Here's an online reference library of books and websites for girls.

The American Planning Association has resources for community planners who want to inform and engage young people in decision-making and community building. Detailed lesson plans are ready to use with young people to explore the strengths and gaps in their own community.

If you want to include young people in shaping your community program and participating in key decisions, Youth on Board's revised 14 Points: Successfully Involving Youth in Decision Making is a logical starting point.

This section of the Harvard Family Research Project site is a forum for evaluators, practitioners, funders and policymakers to share information and discuss issues related to after school programs.

President Bush asked American children to earn or collect a dollar each to help Afghan children. Donations can be sent to America's Fund for Afghan Children, c/o The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20509-1600.

The Corporation for National Service has compiled tools to help interested adults plan and sustain after-school programs, from starting up and getting funded to evaluating the work.

The goal of this site's organizers is to help girls become school and community activists, give them leadership opportunities, link to information about politics, encourage girls from different backgrounds to get involved and to make sure that women of all ages serve as leaders.