History Constituents Programs Staff and Boards History Women Express, Inc. (the legal name of Teen Voices) was founded in 1988 by two young adult women in Cambridge, Massachusetts who believed in the power of girls to create social change through writing and art. Starting as an all-volunteer organization, Teen Voices now has a paid adult and teen staff with an active Board of Directors. Teen Voices offers a variety of programs, works with girls world-wide, and publishes Teen Voices print and online magazines. Constituents and Community Over 200 teen girls and 40 young adult women mentors participate in the out-of-school time mentoring program in Boston, training editors for Teen Voices magazine and participating in other new programming that combines critical thinking and writing. Two thousand teens from around the world (99 percent girls) send their original art, opinions, poetry, stories, and other editorial content to Teen Voices for possible publication. Teen Voices has a print readership of approximately 54,000 readers and an average of 7.6 million annual hits to www.TeenVoices.com. Program Goals: To develop core language arts, communication and media skills in Boston area, low-income teen girls of color. To educate participating teen girls and their audiences on critical issues of concern to teen girls in a manner that promotes social justice. To publish and disseminate the voices of teen girls through self-generated media and other communication vehicles. To develop a growing cadre of feminist leaders. Our Programs Changing the World for Girls Through Media SHOUT! (Sisters Helping Other Unheard Teens) is the core journalism mentoring program that produces Teen Voices Magazine and Teen Voices Online. Through SHOUT!, teen girls in Boston become Teen Editors and work with each other and a college-aged mentor to write a feature for our publications. Features range in topics from health to politics, community activism to surviving sexual assault, and everything in between. Over 85 teen girls participate in the SHOUT! program each year. If you know a teen who would like to join our program, click here! Girls LEAD (Leadership, Education, Activism, and Diversity) is a series of small group experiences and large group workshops designed to reach Boston area teen girls not participating in SHOUT!. Through book clubs, workshops, an annual conference and poetry night, Girls LEAD gets teens from Boston to engage in conversations around social justice, community activism, and leadership development. Over 125 teen girls participate in Girls LEAD each year. Pens of Power is an initiative designed in response to requests from educators and youth workers for curriculum utilizing Teen Voices content and activities to engage more girls in writing on issues important to them. This initiative represents a major new effort to actively engage girls beyond readers and those enrolled in Teen Voices’ programs. Our goal is to increase girls' writing and provide writing resources for youth development professionals. In July, 2005, Teen Voices kicked off a Technology Initiative to broaden our capacity to publish more girls’ writings, teach girls important technology and publishing skills, and broaden our capacity to reach more girls in Boston and beyond. From creating a new Teen Technology Center to launching a monthly online magazine, Teen Voices continues to engage girls all around the world.