Girls Think Tank's mission is to inspire, empower, and organize our community to advance basic human dignity. We view basic dignity as universal human rights, including access to basic needs and the right to be free from violence, exploitation and discrimination.
Our Strategy
Girls Think Tank provides a vehicle for citizens like you to become hands-on change agents in San Diego.
Our strength lies in our collaborative, volunteer-based model. Each of us doing our small part makes a big difference and working together actually can make the world a better place. We are lithe and fast, mobilizing our community partners and volunteers to accomplish our collective goals. Our success story is not grandiose, but comes from small steps taken every day. We call this micro-activism at its finest.
The model is simple: We hold open forums to discuss issues impacting our community. Upon identifying the issue, we start a hands-on project to gather information and do on-the-ground research. From there, we craft community-based solutions to the challenge, entailing coalition building, organizing, and advocacy. If we are successful, our efforts result in meaningful change here in San Diego, like $700,000 in funding for public restrooms and water -- long sought-after by area groups and leaders, but only recently approved.
The skinny on that: We conceived of -- and created -- Winter Survival Backpacks, which provided needed supplies and an opportunity for us to engage with the homeless community. We then convened a committee comprised of both people with homes and those without, and we decided unanimously to pursue public restrooms and water as top priorities. Thereafter, we gathered 5,000 signatures for a petition and brought together a coalition of diverse stakeholders, including judges, attorneys, law enforcement, non-profit organizations, religious and labor groups, business owners, citizens, advocates and homeless people to advocate for bathrooms and water. In June 2010, the Basic Dignity Coalition was successful in advocating for downtown bathrooms, and four facilities will be placed in key locations in 2011.
We meet each month to discuss issues of importance and formulate community-based solutions here in San Diego. Please look at our calendar of events and projects -- and join the fray.