Girl Child Network was founded in 1998 by Betty Makoni in Zimbabwe. She and 10 high school girls established a girls’ club in a local high school to combat the kind of terrible sexual abuse that Betty herself had undergone, and that many girls were enduring from teachers, relatives and even, officials. GCN now has four empowerment villages and 700 chapters across the country.
Girl Child Network Worldwide was founded in 2009 by Betty Makoni and Priscilla Nyathi in England. They set up a trust fund to be able to give girls living a hard life small grants to finish school, move out of forced sex work and/or start small projects to support themselves. GCNW is also the training center and international umbrella for new GCN chapters emerging in Uganda, US and other places.