A WORLD WE DARE TO IMAGINE PART 3

A WORLD WE DARE TO IMAGINE PART 3

ORGANIZATION 

WYSE - Women and Youth Supporting Each Other

MISSION

Women and Youth Supporting Each Other envisions a world in which all women are empowered to determine their future and effect change. The organization strives to empower young women by providing the resources and support necessary to make positive life choices and create community change. 

By connecting middle school girls from low income communities with female college students, WYSE helps women to form meaningful relationships that benefit both the mentor and mentee. The mentors educate the middle schoolers on sex education, personal identity, healthy relationships, social media, etc. Once a week, mentors from the local university will lead an after school lesson of roughly three hours. Each lesson covers a different topics filled with activities, ice breakers, and lots of snacks. At the end of every lesson, the girls are encouraged to fill out anonymous questions where they can ask the mentors ANYTHING. Essentially, the mentors teach the girls everything a traditional public school would not! 

MY PASSION FOR WYSE 

Look at this photo and tell me how AWESOME my girl gang is! I sincerely love each girl I mentor at WYSE. While I have taught them a whole lot about themselves, they have also taught ME way more than I expected!

I enjoy going to my middle school every Wednesday and hearing about my mentees lives, while challenging myself to be a better listener, better teacher, and better friend to them. They are such fantastic girls who deserve the same opportunities as anyone else despite their financial and racial barriers. It is amazing to see the girls learn so much through our sessions at WYSE and witness how impacting the program is.

Also - they did my edges for me. That was an absolute treat. Sixth graders do not come to play when it comes to hair. 

THE UNIQUENESS OF WYSE 

WYSE is unique in the sense that it is a program of women leading women! It is an empowering program that allows girls to reflect on issues that have in common or don't.  Together, the mentors and mentees explore important topics and develop lasting relationships built on friendship, trust, and love. At the end of the day, WYSE enables women to be each other's biggest supporters. I wish I had a WYSE mentee that helped me when I was in 6th grade! 

WHY AMDP SHOULD SUPPORT WYSE 

Do you remember being in middle school and how awkward it was going through puberty and trying to navigate your identity? How were your sex ed classes? Terrible? Did you have someone you could openly talk to and ask ANYTHING about? Maybe your answers to those questions were positive and you had a smooth middle school experience. Or maybe you had a horrible middle school experience and are so happy to be out of that time. But imagine going through middle school without any support or resources like many of us had. I think a lot of us can agree that we were fortunate to go through such an uncertain period in our lives with support from family, friends, etc. Unfortunately girls in low income areas like South Central do not have that same support and encouragement. Being a woman is already a struggle, but growing up as a minority with a lack of substantial resources is something I can't even imagine. 

Thankfully, organizations like WYSE exist to help girls overcome these barriers. WYSE is already an established non-profit organization that has been making change in communities surrounding 11 universities spanning nationwide. 

As incredible as WYSE is, it is definitely underfunded and understaffed. It is unfortunately ran by primarily college students. It rocks that college students are so involved in WYSE but the program could definitely use more outsiders to help with logistics and planning. We often lack money for events for the girls or even supplies for them. Aside from that, many of the mentors are white students; whereas, the mentees are women of color who come from way different backgrounds. It would be amazing if we could bring in more guest speakers or expand our recruiting efforts to bring in more mentors who are women of color. 

Building off of that, I think it is vital WYSE has more partners and supporters like AMDP to receive grants in order to create an alumni program. The alumni program can be created for former mentors and mentees to remain connected even after they finish their time in WYSE. The program can host a conference twice a year where anyone who is an alumni of WYSE gets to go speak, workshop, and brainstorm how to continuously ensure WYSE is working at its best. The alumni program can also serve a place to encourage past members to get politically involved and advocate on a national level for women's rights and better access to education for everyone. 

Further, we could definitely work with sponsors or companies to provide the girls with opportunities to attend job shadowing days or workshops. Many of the mentees lack the resources to explore jobs or opportunities beyond just what their schools provide them with. It is crucial that organizations like WYSE give them the extra boost and support they need to be the best, confident versions of themselves. 

Lastly, WYSE does such great work in America and it would be awesome if it could expand worldwide, especially in countries that are less developed. If WYSE had more funding and resources, it could expand its efforts and bring assistance to more schools. How awesome would it be if places like India, where prostitution and femicide rates are high, had WYSE and provided young girls with older women who have been in their position or similar positions to guide them and mentor them?!