The Shona Project: Building strong girls from the inside out 

Body image, self-confidence and mental health are among the top stressors for girls aged 12 to 19.  The constant stream of advertising on social media is undermining their self-belief, says The Shona Project founder Tammy Darcy  

Almost eight in 10 teen girls in Ireland don’t ‘feel beautiful’ while almost 60% agree they’ve worries or anxieties nobody knows about.

In the years since Tammy Darcy set up the Shona Project, she has spoken with more than 25,000 girls in every corner of Ireland. So she knows they’re struggling — “already there’s an anxiety epidemic” — but some new statistics have shocked even her.

Research conducted by the Shona Project — with the Youth Lab and the Irish Secondary Schools Union — found almost eight in 10 teen girls in Ireland don’t ‘feel beautiful’. Almost 60% agree they’ve worries or anxieties nobody knows about. And 80% don’t feel they’ll have the same opportunities as boys.

The survey of 500 girls aged 12-19 also found that 84% think negative thoughts about the world around them — and 90% have negative thoughts about themselves.

These stark findings come just ahead of the Shona Project’s SHINE Festival, a two-day hybrid event that takes place next week in celebration of International Day of the Girl. It’s an empowering event with some 100 online and in-person speakers including Roxie Nafousi, Erica Cody, Louise McSharry, Ellen Keane, Georgie Crawford, Senator Eileen Flynn, and special musical guest Lea Heart.

It’s much-needed, says Darcy, CEO and founder of the Shona Project, an initiative that tackles difficulties facing girls aged 11 and over living in the era of social media — among them bullying, low self-esteem, body issues, anxiety, and depression.

“When we ask girls about their biggest challenges, self-confidence and body image are on the same level as mental health. They’re constantly comparing themselves with the thousands of adverts they see every day on social media. It’s destroying their self-belief.

“We live in a world that values women more for how they look than for how they are on the inside, and it’s putting them under huge stress,” says Darcy.

Aoife Hutchison, Irish Olympic swimmer Ellen Walshe, The Shona Project communications manager Ellen Conway, The Shona Project CEO Tammy Darcy, Aoibha Owens, Daisy Drohan, and Anjelica Foley at the SHINE festival launch in Dublin. 

‘I feel I am missing the handbook’

One teen participant in the Shona Project survey said: “It’s very hard to be a confident person in today’s society if you don’t fit into its expectations of you. There are people who are able to fit into this vision with ease. I feel as though I’m missing a handbook, especially with socialising. It comes so naturally to others. I really have to think before saying something, and still I say the wrong thing.”

Darcy says teens have huge expectations placed on them. “There’s this pressure of school and expectation to succeed, even in sports and other activities they do.”

One teenager described having ambitions and knowing she’ll be able to complete them, but also knowing “I won’t be able to do it without causing myself to go on the verge of a mental breakdown”.

Adding to the stress is the acute sense among today’s teens that they’re living in a changing world. Darcy describes how growing up, she felt there was a constancy to the wider world. “There was comfort in that,” she recalls, contrasting it to today’s reality.

“Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have given these girls a sense of uncertainty about the world. They’ve seen the world can change in a day. That has affected them. There’s uncertainty about the planet and around their future opportunities to do with housing and cost of living. They feel it very deeply.”

When asked if they feel safe at night and even during the day, only one in five said they felt safe all the time. “I heard the word ‘target’ a few times — ‘I feel a target for boys’,” says Darcy. “It shows education needs to be done on the boys’ side too.”

Darcy feels girls navigating their teens today have lost two highly insulating factors, which were a protective element for previous generations. “The world feels like a much bigger place to us and more accessible. But we’ve lost the immediate connection with our community, our extended family, our coaches and teachers, girls in our local area.”

And we’ve also lost peaceful, quiet time in our day — a safeguard for mental health, she says. “TV would have been the only distraction in the past. With social media, girls don’t have that quiet time — to process what happened during the day, what it means and how it feels.”

Tammy Darcy of The Shona Project

‘Girls feel they’re being judged’

The Shona Project wants to educate, empower and inspire today’s girls to become tomorrow’s strong, confident leaders. When Darcy visits schools, she finds the atmosphere can sometimes be tense. “Girls feel they’re being judged, in competition with each other. Relationships can be quite tricky. We try to create an environment where girls are supportive and kind to each other.”

Part of doing this sees Darcy sharing her own school experience of being bullied and its effect on her. “I say to the girls: ‘sit down anyone who has been negatively affected by something another girl has said or done’. And they all sit. It proves that they’re not alone. Just that single act unites them at that moment — and it also empowers them to be the change they want to see.”

One-third of survey respondents said their parents don’t have a good understanding of what’s going on in their lives. Darcy sees busy, stressed working parents who are “very worried” about their daughters. She’d like them to see they’re not alone.

“They say ‘my daughter’s having a really hard time at the moment’. Well, they’re not in a minority, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. How we talk about these things, without shame or judgement, really opens a channel of communication.”

She encourages parents at home to take the shame and judgement away from the struggle and to change the narrative. “I tell girls their stories are their superpowers — where they get their strength from: ‘I survived this. I changed that.’”

• Visit shona.ie
• In-person SHINE Festival event has sold out. Online attendees can log on for free anytime over Tuesday/Wednesday, October 11/12, to watch pre-recorded content and – on October 12 – join live stream.
• Schools can sign up to stream the live event in class – they’re encouraged to deck out school halls as mini-festival sites. See the SHINE Festival website .