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Our Mission

Our mission is to build community partnerships to grow healthy girls through research, education, outreach and advocacy.

Our Vision

Our vision is a community in which all girls achieve and sustain their physical, social, and emotional health from birth through adolescence.

Our Strategy

At HARMONY GARDEN we believe that individuals can transform the environment, beliefs, and norms of their community to result in improved health outcomes for girls.  We therefore collaborate directly with community residents and the organizations that serve them to increase their capacity collectively to identify barriers to girls' health through critical inquiry, to recommend action to remove those barriers and to prioritize and implement their recommendations.  The conceptual framework of this strategy is called "participatory action research" and it is distinguished from other types of research by the fact that all partners are equal in status.  We, as educators and researchers, serve as facilitators whereas the residents themselves are the real investigators and agents of social change.  Participatory action research, often described as research by the people for the people, has the advantage that information transfer is bidirectional; both community residents and formal researchers become educated about the assets, needs and social dynamics of the community.