New Board, New Vision – African American News and Issues

Many individuals know the Younger Males’s Christian Affiliation (YMCA). Nonetheless, only some are as acquainted with the Younger Girls’s Christian Affiliation (YWCA). In 1907 when their journey started, YWCA Houston was on a mission to serve ladies and ladies throughout all generations. The YWCA Houston is aware of empowering ladies strengthens each side of our communities, particularly our households. They’ve at all times been devoted to eliminating racism, empowering ladies, and selling worldwide peace, justice, freedom, and dignity. Their imaginative and prescient is that each one ladies and ladies in our communities thrive with out boundaries to alternative.

YWCA Houston’s programming is designed to assist ladies and ladies succeed at each stage of their lives. The coaching, help, and steerage these ladies and ladies obtain enable them to be belongings for his or her households and neighborhood leaders. YWCA is the go-to group to assist ladies improve their social and private growth and stay fulfilling lives.

Dr. Janice Beal is the brand new YWCA Board President, and he or she is a researcher, clinician, creator, and behavioral knowledgeable. She serves as President of Beal Counseling Associates, and Beal Behavioral Well being. At present, she is contracted as a psychological well being knowledgeable for the Steve Fund, the place she serves as this system director for the “Effectively Being in Coloration,” a peer psychological well being instructional program and help teams for college kids of coloration. This program is exclusive and has reached over eighty-five hundred college students in Houston and NY city. In 2020, she developed and applied two COVID-19 disaster psychological well being hotlines and helplines. The first was for our personal Houston Unbiased Faculty District (HISD), reaching out to the scholar physique, dad and mom, lecturers, and directors. Dr. Beal has the talent set, religion in God, and dedication to really make a distinction within the Houston neighborhood.

For many years, the YWCA Meals on Wheels has been one of many largest suppliers of Congregate Meal Websites and the second-largest supplier of House Delivered Meals within the Metropolis of Houston. In 2022, they served 387,250 meals to weak seniors throughout 17 neighborhoods. That is a rare accomplishment that deserves to be praised. These companies help many individuals in our neighborhood who want every day help. Entry to meals is crucial for wholesome households. Dietary applications enable seniors to stay impartial longer and supply extra stability for his or her households whereas concurrently receiving nutritious meals, well being care checks, entry to social employees, and social interplay with their friends.

YWCA Houston operates everlasting supportive housing for chronically homeless ladies (and their youngsters) aged 18-24. They’re the one group in Houston centered on serving this weak inhabitants of younger ladies and their households. Supportive companies embody daycare, GED prep, entry to psychological well being counseling, profession growth, housing items, and transportation.

This system maintains 30 scattered-site items with a capability for 23 single adults and seven households. Shopper-centered companies put together residents for housing stability, impartial residing, and self-sufficiency. We serve 100% chronically homeless folks and prioritize these with essentially the most extreme service wants and size of homelessness.

In closing, Meals on Wheels and Decisions Housing applications are supplied along with further programming from YWCA Houston, together with however not restricted to ladies’s entrepreneurship with small enterprise incubation, case administration, particular person growth Plans, workforce coaching, life-skills steerage, and youth schooling/growth.