International Girls Day Date in the current year: November 14, 2024

For centuries, girls have been denied the same opportunities as boys in most areas of life. Even today, when gender equality is widely discussed and steps are taken to make it a norm in modern society, girls are still told that they are “less than”, that they should not pursue careers in STEM fields because they won’t succeed anyway, that becoming a wife and a mother is all that a woman should want, etc.

A lot of awareness campaigns have been launched to combat stereotypes about what girls and women can or cannot do and encourage young girls to chase their dreams: National Girls and Women in Sports Day, International Girls in ICT Day, International Day of Women and Girls in Science, just to name a few. But all of them focus on specific fields; Kappa Delta Sorority created International Girls Day to celebrate and encourage girls and young women across the world regardless of the path they’ve chosen or the goals they’ve set for themselves.

Kappa Delta was founded in 1897 by four college students at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia. Today, the sorority has over 160 active collegiate chapters and more than 274,000 initiated members. Its philanthropies include Girl Scouts of the USA, Prevent Child Abuse America, Orthopaedic Research Awards, and Children’s Hospital of Richmond, Virginia.

Kappa Delta launched International Girls Day in 2009. The main purpose of the holiday is to celebrate the girls and young women in our lives, help them build confidence, and inspire them to pursue their interests in order to reach their full potential.

Kappa Delta chapters across the country host International Girl Day events and activities every year on or around November 14. These events and activities include, but are not limited to, campus tours, meetings with female leaders from local organizations, various workshops, volunteer opportunities, and many more.

How can you observe International Girls Day? If you’re a girl yourself, it is the perfect day to leave your comfort zone and do something out-of-the-box. It doesn’t have to be something extreme; picking up a new hobby or signing up for a class or club will do. New experiences are meant to help you believe in yourself, not to intimidate you into thinking you’re a failure.

International Girls Day is also a great occasion to help the girls in your life believe in themselves and encourage them to pursue their interests, dreams, and goals. Reach out to them to tell them they can do anything and share your encouragement on social media using the hashtags #YouCan and #InternationalGirlsDay to show girls around the world that their abilities and interests matter and that they can achieve anything they want if they try hard enough.