Nearly half of Black women report anxiety when walking alone at night, according to a poll from the Gallup Center for Black Voices. These safety issues plague communities where many Black girls live. Unlike most young people, however, Tyler Lattimer was in a position to do something about it.

Along with six other girls and gender-expansive youth, Lattimer—a 16-year-old from the Bronx, New York—was a part of The Black Girl Freedom Fund’s youth advisory board that helped to allocate funds and grants for organizations led by and in service of Black women and youth in communities nationwide.

After the Black Girl Freedom Fund raised over $20 million last year, the teens gave out grants ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 to organizations prioritizing safety and well-being last June. Six organizations received grants, including national organizations Pretty Brown Girl and Healing the Black Body that have Black leaders at the helm of its initiatives.

“The work we have done in grantmaking can change the community,” said Lattimer. “Those organizations we donated to will now have more money to create a platform for themselves, be able to accommodate more Black girls and gender expansive youth, and have more resources.”

The Black Girl Freedom Fund is an initiative under the Grantmakers for Girls of Color, an organization that puts minority women and disadvantaged youth in grantmaking and philanthropic spaces.

A former youth community organizer in Philadelphia, Kyndall Osibodu, co-facilitator of the Black Girl Freedom Fund Youth Advisory Board, said the fund disrupts the existing power dynamic.

“It really is about us sharing power and shifting power to them,” said Osibodu, 30, from her home in Brooklyn.

Read the full article about creating safe spaces for Black girls by Avril Silva at Ms. Magazine.