Pathways to Employment and Fair Wages
GirlTREK
January 2023-July 2024
GirlTrek empowers local women to be solution-makers in their communities. This grant supported an initial planning phase as GirlTrek explored launching a workforce development program, while also developing a strengthened financial sustainability strategy.
Through this New Jersey pilot, GirlTREK considered expanding upon their model of walking support groups, through a model in which volunteers could become certified and paid to provide peer support and physical activity to women to disrupt disease and support life-saving habits. The idea had a triple intent to: 1) improve the health of individual families and address the adverse impacts of poverty; 2) increase GirlTrek’s institutional capacity to deliver direct public health services in high-need communities; and 3) create a sustainable funding path enabling GirlTrek to reach its vision of increasing life expectancy for Black women by ten years, in ten years.
CHAP and GirlTREK began working together in early 2022. GirlTREK was exploring a workforce development pilot in New Jersey. The idea was to build upon their model of walking support groups and enable especially energized volunteers and community leaders to receive reimbursement as certified community health workers, peer recovery support specialists, and doulas.
The intent of the certification strategy was three-fold: to improve the health of individual families and address the adverse impacts of poverty, increase GirlTREK’s institutional capacity to deliver direct public health services in high-need communities, and create a sustainable funding path as the organization worked to reach its vision of increasing life expectancy for Black women by ten years, in ten years.
While in-depth research with state officials and conversations and GirlTrekkers led to the realization that pre-existing pathways were not the right fit, the project led GirlTREK to begin creating a Community Health Activist certification program combining the competencies required to be a health worker and those of a GirlTREK organizer.
When the new program launches, Community Health Activists will be able to create diagnostic plans, provide GirlTREK-certified referrals, and offer walking prescriptions to individuals and groups in the places they call home.
About GirlTREK
Since launching in 2010, GirlTREK has become one of the most effective public health interventions in the country, single-handedly changing the course of Black women’s lives and health. Far more than a walking group, GirlTREK serves as a life-saving sisterhood. It is a campaign to heal intergenerational trauma, fight systemic racism, and transform Black lives. As women organize walking crews, they also mobilize community members to support advocacy efforts and lead a Civil Rights-inspired health movement. The program—which currently has 1,371,776 members—has significantly contributed to weight loss, fewer symptoms of depression, and lower reliance on prescription medications for Black women. More than half of the women surveyed who have taken the GirlTREK pledge have sustained a habit of walking daily for over one year.