EmpowHer Celebrates 20 Years in the Community – Los Angeles Sentinel

For 20 years, the EmpowHer Institute has supported ladies and younger girls in underrepresented communities, ages 11-18, by educating them essential abilities by way of schooling, coaching, and mentorship to organize them for school and profession alternatives.

Since 2003, the Los Angeles based mostly non-profit has been the one gender-responsive group within the county to offer a completely built-in social-emotional studying class in Title 1 (contains LAUSD, constitution faculties, inexperienced dot faculties, and so on.) center and excessive faculties.

Along with the social-emotional help, EmpowHer hosts culturally inclusive, trauma-informed, immersive studying packages aimed toward breaking generational cycles of poverty with a social justice method by way of advocacy and mentorship. The institute additionally teaches younger girls monetary literacy, together with inventory and investments, coding, and artwork activism, all whereas serving to them develop the data to navigate and discover society and its influence.

EmpowHer is devoted to serving to ladies thrive as they serve over 1,000 BIPOC ladies in L.A. 100% of their center faculty individuals matriculate into highschool, 100% of their highschool ladies graduate and attend school, 100% of ladies study a brand new ability in this system, 90% of their partnered faculties report a decline in disciplinary actions amongst enrolled ladies, and 80% of ladies report feeling extra self-confident and fewer burdened due to this system’s help. The institute assists Black and Brown ladies every year with educational and profession exploration packages by way of numerous e-steam initiatives, just like the annual Ladies to Greatness Teen Summit, and their Social Justice STEAM Summer season Camp.

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President and Chief Govt Officer (CEO) Daybreak L. Brown, with greater than 20 years of non-profit administration and consulting expertise, joined the EmpowHer group in October 2020, and has been instrumental in increasing the group’s attain. She has devoted her profession to the advocacy of ladies and younger with a number of the identical life experiences rising up in forgotten neighborhoods. In current interview with the L.A. Sentinel, Brown mentioned EmpowHer’s operations, influence, and longevity locally.

The Washington D.C. native all the time had a ardour for social justice. After learning performing and graduating from New York College (NYU), Brown shortly discovered her means again to the neighborhood working with the youth at an area YMCA. She turned a supervisor, started main an after-school program in Harlem, and later went again to highschool to acquire a grasp’s diploma in drama remedy.

After the tragedy on September 11, 2011, Brown believed that she obtained affirmation about her profession path.

“I specialised in working with kids and girls who got here from violent communities and skilled post-traumatic stress because of this. That was throughout 9/11, and whereas having my very own private expertise and loss, I turned one of many go-to therapists working with kids who misplaced caretakers,” she recalled.

“That was my aha second and my profession continued from there, working with ladies and primarily youth within the justice system and girls who’ve been intercourse trafficked. Now I’m centered on instructional fairness with the EmpowHer Institute. Trauma and therapeutic are such a giant a part of who I’m, supporting younger folks, and girls round that work,” mentioned Brown.

As an advocate and strategic thought accomplice, Brown has led advocacy initiatives that efficiently turned California laws, established greatest practices for eliminating gender bias throughout the juvenile justice system, decriminalizing ladies who’ve been intercourse trafficked, and implementing community-based gang intervention methods. She has additionally served on numerous advisory boards centered on points affecting girls and ladies of coloration.

One among EmpowHer’s profitable immersive-learning packages is the Social Justice STEAM Camp, part of the yearlong Social Justice STEAM Initiative.  Over the course of five-weeks in the course of the summer season, center faculty ladies examine marine biology whereas staying on a university campus.

In partnership with the College of Southern California’s (USC) Wrigley Science Middle, the ladies journey to Catalina Island the place they’re taught snorkeling and kayaking whereas learning marine ecology, local weather change, and its influence on marginalized communities. Lower than 1% of marine biologists are Black girls. This system options instructors who’re girls of coloration and illustrate the institute’s mission of empowering the ladies by way of schooling and coaching.

On the finish of the primary three-weeks of this system, 25 ladies put together a report and current their analysis findings for an opportunity to finish the second session for the remaining two-weeks. The second session affords scuba diving classes and certifications, together with crusing classes.

Whereas the center schoolers full STEAM, the highschool ladies work on the camp for above minimal wage or intern with different partnered companies to align with their career-readiness packages. After graduating highschool, all the ladies in this system who’re accepted into school obtain a scholarship. The institute is protecting their promise to assist break systemic boundaries by eliminating some monetary stress, making certain that they’re capable of afford to proceed their schooling.

When explaining this system, Brown shared, “We take a wholistic method to our work. As a substitute of simply telling them they’ll do these items and we are going to encourage you, we’re really giving them the abilities and immersive experiences to know what their life might seem like – giving them entry to influential girls and corporations that may later present employment as a result of whenever you see her, you could be her.”

With their life-changing packages and initiatives, EmpowHer envisions a world the place each woman is supplied the alternatives and sources she uniquely must embrace the facility of her voice; make knowledgeable selections about her physique and future; break generational cycles of poverty; contribute to the creation of an equitable society.

To have fun their 20 years locally, the institute has designed an anniversary necklace impressed by the EmpowHer emblem and proverb, “It takes a village to boost a baby.” Made totally in stable 10K yellow gold in a matte brushed end, the necklace options nearly one carat of garnet gems in rhomboid and spherical.

Designed by Azra Mehdi, 100% of the income from gross sales shall be donated to the EmpowHer Institute to proceed their noteworthy mission of teaching and empowering ladies.

The institute has a wide range of upcoming occasions for 2023, together with their Ladies to Greatness Teen Summit on Friday, April 28, Black Ladies Non-profit Leaders Discussion board, and the Pathmaker Awards Gala.

To volunteer, donate, or change into a college accomplice, go to Our Applications – EmpowHer Institute or join on-line at Contact Us – EmpowHer Institute.