Celebrating our work with girls and young women
Wednesday 11th March 2026Last Sunday was International Women’s Day, an opportunity to celebrate the 1,850+ girls and young women and the 2,200+ female leaders that are a part of the BB family!
BB groups are able to choose to operate a Girls’ Association, providing Churches with an option for reaching out to girls and young women in their local communities alongside their work with boys and young men. Nearly 200 of our groups operate this model, including 8 new GA groups that have started up in the last year.
133rd London, based in Tottenham in North London, were one of the first groups to adopt the GA model. They have seen strong growth in recent years, with over 80 young people across all age groups including around 40 girls and young women.
Joanne Ryder, one of their leaders, told us a bit about their decision to work with girls as well as boys, and how it has benefitted them, the group and the wider Church community.
“We’ve had girls involved from the very start of Girls’ Association. For us, it was about creating opportunities for girls alongside what we already had in place. We didn’t want to have to find an entirely separate set of leaders, create a different time slot, or expect leaders to give up even more time. Instead, we worked with what we had and adapted it to make it work for everyone.
“Our leadership team is also very diverse, and we now have more female leaders than male leaders, which certainly wasn’t the case for many years.
“There have been challenges along the way, but overall it has worked well and helped us to grow where we are today, with over 80 young people and 16 leaders.
“More recently, our girls have been able to take part in serving within the Church, and over the last couple of years we’ve had several girls confirmed. We are fortunate to have a very close relationship with our Church and to be fully included in the wider Church community.
“For example, at our recent cake sale in support of YoungMinds, the congregation was incredibly supportive, and many people simply gave donations. Our female leaders were instrumental in preparing and organising the event, and three of our Senior girls confidently ran it on the day.”
