Vanessa renae
Co-Founder and President, GirlTREK
THE STORYTELLER AWARD
Shifting what's possible by changing how people understand and relate to a problem through journalism, documentary, fiction, visual art, music, or cultural movements
Area of focus: Health EquityAbout
girltrek
GirlTREK is a global health movement of 1.3 million members and one of the largest nonprofits serving Black women in the United States. Founded in 2010, it is powered by more than 10,000 trained volunteer leaders. GirlTREK organizes Black women to walk, talk, and solve problems together, addressing inactivity, isolation, and injustice through walking, strong social networks, and community-based leadership. By 2030, GirlTREK will activate 100,000 members and build leadership pathways that equip them to serve as a powerful health force for their families, neighborhoods, and communities.
get to know vanessa
What inspired you to do this work? Was there a particular moment or person or incident that sparked a new level of commitment?
We were inspired by the women who walked before us — from Harriet Tubman, who walked for freedom, to the women of the Montgomery bus boycott, who walked for civil rights, to the women in our own families, whose daughters we are and who walked to show us the way. They taught us that walking is a tool of liberation, used by ordinary people the world over, and we built GirlTREK because we believe the same strategies those women used can be turned on the devastating health crisis facing our communities today.
What drives you to keep questioning the status quo and building new ways to overcome tough challenges?
We keep questioning the status quo because it is unacceptable for Black women to die early, and the current approaches have not changed that. What keeps us building are our members: thousands of volunteer organizers leading Walking Crews, organizing in their neighborhoods, and serving as health role models — we are in deep community with them, and every day they send us inspiration, ideas, strategies, and solutions that inform our approach and help us develop new ways of overcoming the challenges we face.
What solutions are you working on that make you excited and hopeful for the future?
The solutions that excite us most are the leadership pathways we are building. By 2030 we will activate 100,000 of our members to walk, talk, and solve problems together, then train them through those pathways and deploy them as a health force able to go door to door and care for their own neighborhoods, organized around our 10-point Joy & Justice Agenda. We are hopeful because it is a new system of care, built by the people who need it; because the Agenda takes on the interconnected crises that keep us unwell rather than treating them one at a time; and because it gives us clarity, directing our capacity and turning our demands into declarations of what we are building. Most of all, we are hopeful about the generational impact — we already have ten years of evidence that girls who started walking beside their mothers are grown women now leading their own generation.
What are the "unlocks" — approaches, practices, or principles — that have helped you be effective in building this innovative approach to place-based opportunity development?
Practice — we design with, not for. Our staff came up through the volunteer ranks, and we are building for our own mothers, sisters, and daughters — that proximity keeps the work authentic, and it is why our members trust us with their lives.
Approach — the Tubman Doctrine. Inspired by Harriet, we developed a four-step doctrine that guides our members and our work: never ask permission to save your own life, so start walking today; when you learn the way, go back and get a sister; rally your allies; and find joy.
Principle — we insist on our own worthiness. Black women deserve to live long, healthy, joyful lives, and we organize as though that should matter to everyone, not only to us.
Expert advisor
Cheryl Dorsey
CEO, Echoing Green
At Echoing Green, we look for four things in a founder: passion, purpose, resilience, and identity alignment. Vanessa and Morgan had all four when we selected them in 2013: they were building what they themselves needed. What I hope others learn from GirlTREK is how to hold onto joy while doing serious work, and how to take care of yourself as a leader while caring for everyone else.
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Vanessa Renae
Co-Founder and President, GirlTREK
