OUR MISSION

To empower girls and boys to reach their potential through improved health education and preparation for life.

We aim to equip girls and boys with context appropriate puberty guidance in the form of stories that capture their own growing up experiences, and the empowering feelings that come from learning privately through reading and sharing a book with friends and family. At around 50 cents a copy, the books are far less expensive than the cost of delivering a single vaccine – yet confer lasting health and social benefits to girls and boys, and their future families.

Our History

In 2005, Marni Sommer designed her doctoral research in Tanzania to explore what girls knew about their bodies, menstruation and puberty.  She collected girls’ own “menstrual stories,” and discovered a huge gap in girls’ understanding and confidence around their periods and puberty. In response, she developed the first girls’ puberty book, Vipindi vya Maisha (Growth and Changes), incorporating the girls’ own stories and questions.  The book received an overwhelmingly positive response from girls, their mothers, aunties, grandmothers, teachers, and even fathers and boys. Convinced that the book had tapped into an unmet need of girls around the world, Dr. Sommer established Grow and Know in 2010 with the aim of replicating the Tanzanian success story in other countries.

Grow and Know was founded in the spirit of Dr. Jackie Kirk, a woman of tireless energy devoted to the cause of educating girls around the globe, and improving gender equity in schools. Her enormous passion and dedication, and particular focus on empowering girls, will be forever captured in the participatory methods used with young people for developing the content of our books.