young women's initiative
Young Women's Association | Young Women's Mentoring | Contact Us
Mission
The Young Women’s Initiative is a component of SLJ’s Early College Awareness Program. The three-pronged mission of the Young Women’s Initiative at the Urban Assembly School for Law & Justice is to create and foster a positive sense of self, increase school engagement and improve academic performance among our young women.
To accomplish our mission, we have created The Young Women’s Association, a young Women’s empowerment group and mentoring program which pairs students with professional women of color.
We believe that the YWI's programs will provide our young women with the tools to succeed in high school, graduate from college and, most importantly, successfully transition into womanhood.
Why We Started
Educational research and reform efforts focus heavily on the experiences of young men of color in schools. We began the Young Women’s Association in 2008 when it became clear that many of our young women faced similar challenges to those faced by our young men.
As Horace Hall discusses in his article on mentoring young women of color, “our emphasis on masculinity relegates the lived realities of African American and Latina girls to the margins”. While our girls were doing better by conventional measures, we found they were more likely than their male counterparts to struggle with issues surrounding self-image, relationship building, and communication. SLJ must be a place that feels supportive to young women. Through YWI, we are building a community of empowered young women who have become active citizens at SLJ and will, no doubt, become leaders in their communities and the world at large.
programs
The Young Women’s Association
The Young Women's Association (YWA) is an after school empowerment group. Its goal is to strengthen academic and leadership skills and provide a forum for building a strong female community in our school. YWA meets weekly for discussions, guest lectures, workshops, and trips.
Young Women’s Mentoring at SLJ
The Value of Mentoring
In their Idea Book for Mentors Faddis, et al suggest that interactions with professional women can increase self-esteem and confidence and combat isolation and fragmentation experienced by young women of color by strengthening the bonds of friendship and networking.
Young women involved in a mentoring program benefit from an improved self concept, and are considerably less likely to use alcohol and drugs. Positive interactions with role models are correlated with success in high school and students involved in mentoring programs are far more likely to go to college than their counterparts.
Mentoring Program Goals & Commitment
The Young Women’s Association seeks to create a mentoring program which aims to:
- facilitate self-awareness
- provide mentorship relationships with positive role models
- enhance student self-esteem
- enhance student goal-setting skills
- foster cooperative learning and teamwork
- assist with development of effective problem-solving & conflict resolution skills
- provide academic support
Mentors are asked to commit to:
- meeting with their mentee twice monthly; once per month with the entire Young Women's Association Mentoring Program and once per month outside of the whole group meeting time
- submitting monthly Mentoring Activity Logs due at the monthly evening meeting
- participating in the program for a minimum of one year, and missing no more than 2 mentoring days over the course of a year
How to become a mentor:
- attend an info session
- complete a program application and attend a preliminary 20-minute interview with an SLJ staff member
- attend a 2-hour training prior to beginning the mentoring program
- complete a fingerprinting, screening and reference check
Contact Us
Questions, Comments or Ideas?
Please feel free to contact Sharhonda Bossier or Elizabeth Donahue.