Growing up in Dublin, California, Maegha Ramanathan found a valuable outlet in athletics, falling in love with swimming and joining a competitive co-ed team. But at 13 years old, she noticed that sexist comments directed at her female teammates by their male counterparts were increasingly leading them to drop out. Soon she began receiving them herself. Something, she thought, had to change.

This formative experience inspired her to found the nonprofit Girls4Sports (G4S) in 2021 as a high school freshman. Since then, she has grown the organization into the world's largest youth-led effort to combat gender inequality in athletics. Now 18, Ramanathan leads a network of 1,500 volunteers operating across 20 U.S. states and 23 countries; G4S has helped integrate more than 39,600 girls into 250 athletic programs around the world, as well as donated over 10,350 pieces of sports equipment to children's homes, hospitals, and youth teams. “I wanted to ensure that no girl is ever denied the right to play sports,” she says.

The organization’s model is deliberately peer-led.  When G4S hosts its free athletic camps, equipment drives, conferences, and workshops, it's not only the participants who benefit; the young women running the events are building leadership, advocacy, and mentorship experience. “In that way, we're accomplishing two things at once,” Ramanathan says. “We have female athletes running these events and workshops, but also attending.”

While G4S is based in Ramanathan’s home state of California, she has intentionally expanded the organization’s global reach, driven by a stark reality she has witnessed firsthand: In Devakottai, the town in India where her parents are from, very few girls play sports, Ramanathan says. G4S has helped launch and grow girls’ sports teams in multiple countries—including India, South Africa, Pakistan, Kenya, and Lesotho—in partnership with other organizations; the nonprofit also hosts virtual advocacy workshops. “Our goal is not only to raise awareness about gender equality in sports and bring sports opportunities, but to ensure that we're educating girls to become change-makers in their own communities,” she says.

To advance this mission, G4S launched a national fellowship program last year, which provides 15 girls with $200 grants to lead their own initiatives, which so far have included workshops on body image for female athletes and athlete mental health.

Ramanathan sees the recognition as proof of what young people can accomplish together: “It's all thanks to the power of youth—what youth can do when they come together.”