Generations Coming Together In Solidarity: Asian Girls Ignite
Asian Girls Ignite, WFCO Grantee Partner, Builds Belonging
Founders Joanne Liu and Mehgan Yen Help AANPHI and LGBTQIA+ Youth See Themselves As Vital Threads in Colorado’s Fabric
How has receiving a grant from The Women’s Foundation of Colorado supported or transformed your organization’s work?
Receiving $40,000 over two years from The Women’s Foundation of Colorado’s Women & Girls of Color Fund has been a beautiful gesture of trust. That trust allowed us to invest in what truly sustains our mission: our people. With this support, our team joined Joy as Resistance’s training series to better advocate for and support our LGBTQIA+ students.
Those lessons changed us. They’re helping us strengthen our language, our practices, and our confidence to serve queer, trans, and gender-expansive students with intention and care. Knowing that 40% of LGBTQIA+ AANHPI youth have seriously considered suicide, this work means a lot to us personally.
WFCO’s support feels like women lifting up other women. It’s the feeling of being seen and included in a broader story — one where AANHPI women belong and are recognized as part of Colorado’s fabric. For our team, that affirmation has been a quiet but powerful form of healing.
How is Asian Girls Ignite making a difference for women, girls, and gender-expansive people in your community?
Since our founding in 2020, AGI has served more than 300 AANHPI girls and gender-expansive youth. We’re also surrounded by over 250 AANHPI women mentors and role models through our Lotus Collective who make this work possible. Together, they form a living example of community: generations coming together to lift one another higher.
We’ve seen the ripple effect. Two of our high school students, Elise Y. and Katie B., started an AANHPI affinity group at their school. They’re already carrying AGI’s spirit of belonging into new spaces. It’s proof that when young people feel seen, they become the ones who see others.
Our programs are unique because they affirm the lived experiences of AANHPI youth whose voices are often missing from leadership and wellness spaces. For our mentors, this work heals something within them. They often say, “This is what I needed growing up.” And now, they get to be that space for someone else. That’s the power of community.
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