Every girl deserves to thrive —no matter where she lives

~free2bgirls~ works with communities to support girls and young women survive, thrive and navigate the challenges that exist when growing up in regional and remote areas.

Our story..

Free2b Girls grew from an urgent need that was expressed by a mother in the small town of St Helens on the East Coast of Tasmania. . The mother told us she was ‘worried’ for her two teenage daughters - there weren’t enough social opportunities for them and no creative places where they can ‘dance if they want to without feeling judged.’ She was keen for her daughters to learn some older women’s knowledge too - help younger girls learn things she ‘wished she’d known’ when she was a teen. Teenage girls, she told us, need a safe place in the community that’s independent of school, home or sporting clubs - somewhere they can feel free to just be themselves in.”

So, we started a girls group and called it “Free2 Be’ - providing food, craft, and women who care - opening the doors for 2 hrs every week. Three girls came the first week, four or five the next and within a month we had ten to fifteen girls regularly attending.

Our Vision

Ten years on, we now know for sure that creativity, social connection and really yummy food inspires belonging, hope and happiness amongst young people and their community. Since that first girls group in 2017, we’ve worked with other communities who wanted to know ‘ how come teenage girls come to your group?’ and helped them start their own groups up.

Longford chaplain quote…

Our trainings, mentoring and workshops are key to up skilling youth volunteers, program facilitators and organisations to work effectively with young people. We’ve delivered our trainings in eight different communities over the last ten years, providing ~free2bgirls'~ resources such as policies, risk plans, participant forms, attendance sheets and welcome booklets to equip organisations with all that’s needed to successfully run our programs.

“ Quote training -

Our next ten year vision is to help free2b spaces grow, by working and partnering with more organisations so that more and more teenage girls can keep dancing without feeling judged.

~free2b PRE Sessions

At ~free2bgirls~ we believe conversations and connections are essential for making things grow and are currently running ~free2b ‘PRE’ sessions for anyone wanting to join.

The ‘PRE’ stands for ….wait for it….. “polyphonic relational epistemology” - how’s that for a beautiful phrase!! We love playing with big words in ~free2bgirls~ - ‘sparkly words’ we like to call them and “polyphonic relational epistemology’ is definitely one of our favourites.

It’s a phrase developed by a philosopher named Sidorkin to describe : “a novel conceptualization of knowledge as a dynamic, co-constructed phenomenon that emerges from the interplay of multiple voices and perspectives” and when practically applied, like we do in our PRE sessions it can : “foster inclusive and collaborative learning environments”

In simple terms, our ~free2b PRE sessions will offer a FREE 1 hr taste of how our girls groups run - a chance to experience how we allow, work with and learn from all the different dynamics that come through our doors each week. The zoom session is also a way to explore if a Free2b Girls Group is something your community or organisation would like to take on, and how to go about making this happen.

Our next ~free2b PRE session is at 1pm November 23rd 2026 and we’d love you to come and join us.

Please send us a message in the contact form, sharing why you are interested in ~free2bgirls~ and we’ll shoot through the zoom link for our upcoming session.

About

Before starting up a girls group in a new community we always ask girls if this is something they would like. We often do a school incursion and ask about what they enjoy doing in their community after school and if there’s places they like to hang out in.

When we’re told:

“There’s nothing to do and nowhere to go...”

a response we so often hear, we ask our next question:

 “Would a ‘girls only space’  help?’ and  always get an overwhelming

 ‘YES!”

Then we start envisioning together what a girls group in their community could look like.

Some of the ideas we’ve had from girls we’ve talked to have been pretty wild and amazing (a pink Free2b Girls House with beanbags, green couches with pillows that feel nice, smoothie makers, purple rugs, a glitter cupboard, materials to make ‘slime’ forever, a swimming pool, endless tim tams and so on) but the standard requests have always been for food, a craft box and ‘time to ourselves.’

Then next question we ask is why they think a girls only space is important. The responses  we receive always surprise us:

“Because we won’t need to fight for our food’

“I can dance freely’

“We won’t need to shout to be heard all the time,’

“ I’ll be able to just be myself and  talk about what I want to without being judged or teased.”

‘I won’t need to catch the bus on the day Free2b is on. There’s no security camera on the bust, and I never feel safe.”

Tani, founder of Free2b Girls, says these are the main reason why she continues running Free2b Girls – a small social enterprise that inspires and encourages communities to care for and value the younger generation, in particular girls and young women. By establishing a Free2b Girls Group for 2 hrs after school once a week where there’s food, shelter, friends and supportive women, communities are giving their girls a sense of safety, belonging and respect.

Having listened carefully to participants in Free2b Girls Groups over the years, Tani has learnt how being a teenage girl in a rural community has very specific challenges. Further consultations and research show these challenges exist for rural girls throughout Australia and the world, pointing to a huge gap in programs and services tailored to this demographic. Hence her decision to create the Free2b Girls organisation in 2019 and provide consultation, trainings and materials to communities so they can run weekly groups for girls and begin actively addressing these challenges. 

“A Free2b Girls Group is such a simple thing communities can give to their girls -  a safe, inspiring space, outside of school or home where girls can express themselves, get creative, eat good food, be with friends and just feel who they are for a while, without being told  who they should be.’’  Tani

The licensing and training model Free2b Girls offer helps upskill organisations and communities to work with youth, particularly girls and young women. Free2b Girls provides the mentoring and training required to establish a locally run girls group, along with a resource package that includes attendance sheets, risk plans, participant forms, policies, safety guidelines, research materials, funding templates, activity ideas and sustainability strategies to name a few. An annual license fee ensures continues use of our logo, ethos and IP, access to ongoing Free2b supports and connection opportunities with a network of Free2b Girls Groups across Australia.

Our ‘Free2b Team’ has over 30 years combined experience working in the youth and community sector and value ‘ on the ground’ expertise to guide us in our work. We also regularly engage our Youth Consultancy Team consisting of 9 young people whose insight and experience helps us make decisions and keep our organisation  accountable, inspired and relevant for the future. Free2b Girls materials, trainings and Youth Consultancy Team have also helped support the development of additional grassroots youth initiatives including our 1:1 mentoring programs ( free2b time/free2fly) the establishment of a LGQTIA youth group in St Helens and the YCNECT initiative in the Break O Day region. 

To find out more about how Free2b Girls works with communities or to engage our Free2b Team for trainings or consultancy, please join our next PRE session by clicking here’

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“ quote - Tani /Char. "

“Longford Chaplain quote”