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Giving Girls a Step Up
By Nancy Schatz Alton

If it wasn’t for Passages Northwest, I wouldn’t be here,” says Elena Overland, motioning toward Vertical World, a Seattle-area rock-climbing gym. Now a staff member there, 19-year-old Overland says PNW helped her change her life.

When Overland participated in PNW’s Girls Rock! program at age 11, she was a shy girl in foster care who tended to isolate herself even in a group. “I was continuously going on [PNW] programs and being more courageous, listening to the staff saying ‘We’re here for you. We’ll listen to you,’” says Overland. “I opened myself slowly to other girls my age.”

Now a Bellevue Community College student, a competitive climber and a PNW volunteer, Overland is a model of success for Passages Northwest and other organizations that help females navigate their adolescent years. Several groups target “at-risk” populations, a definition that can include homeless teens to girls who live in low-income housing projects to minority populations. Of course, it’s not a stretch to say that all girls can be considered at-risk in our society.

“We have discovered that no matter their background, girls across the map are dealing with very tough issues in growing up,” says Katie Hultquist, PNW’s executive director. “And that they are resilient, creative, strong and beautiful leaders that, with some positive parenting, coaching and programming, can tap into their own unique voice and power to shape the life they want for themselves and impact their communities.”

Five local nonprofit groups use different mediums and methods to help girls discover the power that lies within them. PNW’s Girls Rock! program uses rock climbing, mentoring, the arts and activism to empower middle-school girls. Girls on the Run pairs a running program with self-esteem/life skill lessons. The Girl Scout Totem Council’s Skills for Life program operates Girl Scout troops in low-income housing communities. Powerful Voices’ Girls RAP is a yearlong after-school program combined with one-on-one support from adult mentors. And YWCA GirlsFirst is a yearlong program for girls entering high school that includes academic skill building, mentoring, a weekly after-school group and a summer leadership academy.

Passages Northwest

In 1996, two local women started PNW to meet three needs: to help girls and women build courage and leadership skills; to provide programs that connect females with the beauty and power of the outdoors; and to facilitate meaningful relationships between girls and women from all walks of life. PNW attracts a diverse group of participants.

PNW’s Girls Rock! program meets for four hours once a week for 10 weeks at Seattle’s Vertical World rock gym. Each fall and spring session starts with a daylong challenge course designed to build trust between the girls and their mentors. Then, each Monday session at the gym begins with an art project. During one session in April, the girls drew pictures representing a personal past challenge, a current challenge and a future challenge and shared their stories with the group. They then paired up with their adult climbing partner and mentor for the day’s climbing activity. “The girls crave meaningful relationships with adults,” says Hultquist. “When girls call to sign up for another activity, they always ask, ‘Is my mentor going to be there?’”

In fact, Elena Overland still counts her mentor Gina as one of the most important people in her life. At the April session, Overland spoke about rock climbing and her life before PNW as she demonstrated a new climbing skill. Climbing up a wall, she showed them how to set up safety ropes on the rocks. Acknowledging that it was a difficult task, she also reminded them that jumping out of their comfort zones was a good idea. “When you challenge yourself, you feel new. In daily life, you’re going to have to get out of your comfort zone,” says Overland. “If you stay in the same place, you’re never going to experience life. Rock climbing out there in nature, you’re experiencing something new.”

When the girls and their mentors go on a weekend camping and climbing trip, they step out of the safe confines of Vertical World. This spring’s excursion coincided with a rainy, chilly Saturday. Despite the difficult conditions, the girls learned to rappel: lowering themselves with a rope down a rock wall. “The girls had such good attitudes. If I had been by myself that day, I probably would have gone home,” says mentor Lin Heffner. “It was good to test our gear and test our strength. The girls really pushed themselves.”

Girls on the Run

When Molly Barker was a teenager, running made her feel powerful, strong, and beautiful. Running helped her refute “girl box” ideas such as that being a woman meant keeping anger to herself, and that looks are more important than who she was inside. Twenty years later, Barker founded Girls on the Run (GOTR) to help other females shatter the “girl box.” Started in 1996, GOTR now has more than 200 chapters, including the Puget Sound Council run by Jeanne Higgins.

The 12-week program serves girls ages 8 to 11. Five program sites -- in Northeast, Northwest and South Seattle, and in Redmond and White Center -- are based at elementary schools. The girls meet for an hour-and-a half session twice a week. A typical group consists of 16 girls and four volunteer leaders. GOTR follows a set national curriculum designed to increase physical activity and emotional health, and to reduce the motivations for at-risk behaviors such as eating disorders and substance abuse.

“All lessons incorporate running and I use that term loosely,” says Higgins. “Lots of these kids have never exercised or run. This is about having fun. Girls can power walk or skip.”

During an April meeting at the White Center locale, the girls were clearly having a good time. Substance abuse was the topic of the day. During one game, the girls ran a lap, completed a task or thought about a message that was written on a motivational card they were given, and received a sticker for their accomplishment. They ran, skipped, walked and jogged until their faces, arms and hands were all dotted with small round stickers. One card read, “You just smoked your first cigarette. Your lungs are crying out. Sit for two minutes and run 1 lap.” Another one read, “Your grandmother died. You talked to your best friend, your teacher and your family about your feelings. You were open and honest. You were yourself.” The volunteers ran with the girls, cheered them on and later discussed their favorite cards with them.

A lesson from a previous meeting had an immediate effect on one participant. As she watched her friends swinging on a jungle gym one day she thought to herself, “I can’t do that.” Then she remembered a GOTR lesson about how a person can change her thinking to help her do what she thought wasn’t possible. So she changed her thoughts to “I’ll just try to do it.” She soon found that she could indeed swing on the jungle gym like her friends.

Each girl carries away from the program a personal, successful memory: the completion of a 3.1-mile community race, an adult buddy running with her, talking her through the challenge. “They glow when they cross the finish line,” says volunteer Krissy Moehl. “Even if they are in the pouring rain, they have a glow to them.”

Girl Scouts Skills for Life

The meetings still include the all-important treats, but the Girls Scouts Skills for Life troops are not ordinary troops. This program serves girls and young women who reside in low-income and public housing communities in Seattle, Kent, Renton, and on the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation. Added to the normal mix of activities are curricula designed to help Girl Scouts increase their skills for life at home, school, and in the world.

Young women ages 11 to 17 complete three core curricula during a Girl Scouting school year. Currently, the girls are working on the Second Step Violence Prevention curriculum that is part of P.A.V.E. the Way (Project Anti-Violence Education), a program that is supported by a grant from Girl Scouts of the USA and the Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Counselors attend some sessions to meet individually with the girls to answer questions in private and to share some of their own life experiences. Also as part of the curriculum the teens will design a service project related to reducing violence in their local community.

“We’re trying to promote lifelong healthy ideals and skills and teach girls how to succeed in life through positive role-modeling, exposing them to professional women and careers and to other girls in sister troops,” says Marylou Buckner, outreach manager. “There’s the other end of it, too. They make good friends, they get listened to and paid attention to and they don’t want to leave….”

Last winter, the NewHolly troop worked with a contract artist to design and build an 18-foot-long glass mosaic. “In collaboration with our host program, the NewHolly Youth and Family Center, we throw in projects like this between the Skills for Life material. I think that’s what keeps them,” says leader Denise Brown. “Every single piece of glass you see, they placed it.” The intricate and colorful artwork hangs above the NewHolly Teen Center doors. The front and back panels are building facades that signify their community; other pictures include cue balls, smiling red lips and the words ‘Girl Scouts’.

Of course, this troop’s goal is the same as that of every other troop: to “build girls of courage, confidence, and character who build a better world.” Buckner recalls observing a recent game of charades played by the Springwood troop; the girls were acting out what they dreamed about becoming when they grow up. The teens wanted to have multiple turns because they had so many dreams they wanted to portray. “They are stretching their imaginations and learning they can aim that high. That’s all we want,” she says.

Powerful Voices' Girls RAP

In 1995, three women who had just received graduate degrees from the University of Washington’s School of Social Work started Powerful Voices (PV). “We want to encourage girls to be part of a diverse all-girl experience so they can learn to create this same culture of respect in other places in their lives,” says co-founder Ann Muno. “We want to help girls to grow up and transform the world.”

PVs' Girls RAP (Rights! Action! Power!) program brings middle-school girls together to discuss topics that touch their lives, from media influence to sexual assault. RAP groups, consisting of 12 to 14 girls, two paid and two volunteer leaders, meet weekly all year long at Denny, Washington and Hamilton Middle Schools. The girls come from different academic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. According to Muno, the diversity helps them develop a critical viewpoint not just from the base of gender, but of race and class, too. “When you care about girls having more power, it needs to be all girls working that out together,” says Muno.

In addition to the group meetings, each girl is paired with a “Fairy RAP Mother,” an adult mentor and group leader with whom she meets regularly to more personally discuss the topics presented in the weekly meetings and how they may relate to her life. Girls RAP Instructional Coordinator LaRond Baker notes an example of one young woman “connecting the dots” between the meeting material and her own life. Last year, the Hamilton Middle School group addressed how the media portrays and affects both females and males and how photographs of women are often air-brushed. Realizing that she had held up manipulated images as her role models, the young woman said she no longer felt compelled to try to look like the women in advertisements. While Baker talks abstractly about the growth of Girls RAP members, she also points out the concrete help the program provides its participants. For example, if girls are struggling with school or family issues, Girls RAP helps them connect with social services.

This year, the Hamilton group has heard talks by Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome; Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai; and feminist Gloria Steinem. “I’ve heard multiple girls talk about how they hadn’t really realized how women can impact the larger world around them,” says Baker. Some girls have joined Youth Against War and Racism, some support the gay and lesbian community in their schools, and some girls are taking a stand for immigrant rights. After having discussions about poverty and hunger, the group volunteered at the University Food Bank. “When girls see that their time and energy can make a difference in their community, that energy translates into their own personal lives,” says Baker. “They see that their own skills and beliefs can change their own lives. They can indeed make their own choices.”

YWCA GirlsFirst

The YWCA GirlsFirst program, which was launched last year, is a yearlong program specifically designed for girls of color facing economic and social barriers who are entering their freshman year at Franklin, Garfield, Rainier Beach, Chief Sealth, West Seattle, Cleveland, Renton and Evergreen High Schools. “We’ve had leadership programs over the years. We wanted to be responsive to changing needs and we didn’t want to duplicate other programs in the community,” says Jennifer Martin, YWCA’s director of leadership.

The program technically begins the summer before the girls’ freshman year, first at an overnight leadership retreat at Seattle University, then at a three-week long summer leadership academy. “We talk about racism and other ‘isms’ and about the experiences they have had dealing with racism,” says Program Director Elizabeth Pauley. “We really give them a comfortable forum to discuss their experiences as teen women of color,” she adds. “We look at ways to embrace and be proud of their cultural heritage. We help them understand the history of their communities so they can be really proud of the space and the background they come from.”

At the summer academy, each girl sets at least two goals for the year: one academic and the other personal. While the academy teaches them how to build a supportive community, set goals and gain skills for succeeding in high school, it also provides for the girls to visit the University of Washington campus to encourage them to begin thinking long-range about their own futures and about going to college.

Mentors provided through the YWCA GirlsFirst program assist teens in achieving their goals. “They help the girls walk through and strategize and think for themselves about different ways to think through and accomplish these goals,” says Pauley.

The relationship is also about having fun. One program participant had never been to University Village, although she lives nearby in the Central District. She was ecstatic to spend a day with her mentor walking around the outdoor shopping area. “It’s not about the bells and whistles and doing something dramatic; it’s about having someone in their lives who pays attention to them and cares about them,” says Pauley.

The girls also receive a lot of attention in their weekly after-school sessions; six to 14 girls meet with a program coordinator at their respective high schools. Meeting topics include stress and time management, body image, physical wellness, relationships, community building and ethnic identity. The program coordinators try to make sure the topics connect with the girls’ everyday experiences. One successful example of this involves a girl who looks Caucasian but is Turkish and Mexican. Before YWCA GirlsFirst, if someone had asked about her identity, she would have said she was white because that was the easiest answer to give. “Now she readily tells people that she is Mexican and Turkish,” says Pauley. “She really claims her heritage and is proud of it.”

Another component of GirlsFirst is the paid summer internship program. During the year, the girls learn job-readiness skills; by the end of the school year, many of the girls are ready to apply for jobs. These young women compete for jobs at Seattle-area businesses, including REI, Amazon, and the Perkins Coie law firm. “It’s very cool to watch the girls become really excited and more confident; some of them have job-readiness skills that a lot of adults don’t have,” says Martin. “They are leagues ahead of where they were when they started the program. They are ready to enter the workforce and they are confident of who they are and where they are going.”

All of these programs – Passages Northwest Girls Rock!, Girls on the Run, Girls Scouts Skills for Life, Powerful Voices Girls RAP, and YWCA GirlsFirst – strive to help girls become strong, confident young women. They also are all basically about letting girls know they are O.K. “For all of us, especially as women, if someone had just told us we were O.K., that would have made a difference,” says Jennifer Joseph, YWCA GirlsFirst South Seattle program coordinator. “It’s O.K. to talk. There is a safe place to go where you won’t get made fun of because you wear glasses or because you’re smart or because you can’t read well. It’s a safe place where you’re going to have a snack and hang out.

Nancy Schatz Alton is a Seattle freelance writer and mother of two.

©2006 Caliope Publishing Company