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Mary Beth Gentry
Founder and Executive Director |
Dear Friends
Early in my career, I worked at St. Jude
Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. I remember listening to the world-renowned doctors talk about the poverty that surrounded the institution
they worked tirelessly in. What surprised me the most was when they equated the malnutrition they saw in children to be just as catastrophic as
cancer. They planted a seed.
Later, working with doctors at University of Kansas Medical Center reinforced my own beliefs
that a woman's health is about more than a uterus. It is comprehensive, and all the parts of a woman's life must be healthy, not just the physical.
These doctors knew that when a woman is healthy, her whole family is healthy; when a woman is not healthy, the family begins to fall apart; when
families fall apart, communities fall apart. These doctors understood the ripple effect a woman has on those around her. Another seed was
planted.
Now, when I read that the World Bank has found that when a country improves education for its females, its overall per capita
increases, I am not surprised. There are studies that show that improved female education is also linked to things like higher crop yields, reduced
infant mortality, and lower HIV infection rates. Again, I am not surprised, but I am reinvigorated to continue the work we're doing with Young Women
on the Move (YWOM) and to get others involved in helping these young women in our own communities.
Our goal with this first
newsletter is to help you look through the different sets of eyes that make up our organization and to see the effect we're having. You'll hear from
one of the young ladies, Ameisha, as she shares with you how she is being transformed due to YWOM. Take time to read about the amazing experience one
of our volunteers had when a young woman told the volunteer she had been considering suicide. Look over how our young women are beginning to dream.
Check out what we’ve accomplished just in the last year, and then read how you can be a friend, a friend of the organization and the young
women who have chosen to create a life that moves them forward to empowerment.
I need your help to continue planting seeds and growing what
we've started. It is very simple to be a part of the ripple effect that will change one girl, one family, one community, one world. I can't wait to
see what effect you will have with us.
Mary Beth Gentry
Founder and
Executive Director
Young Women on the Move
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Ameisha Hunter speaking at YWOM Recognition Ceremony 2008; Wyandotte High School |
A Young Woman on the Move
Young Women on the Move does exactly what it says. The organization is "young women on the move". The young women are actually on
the move to achieve their goals and dreams. This organization not only helps them along the way but offers the young ladies so much more. They are
mentored and exposed to reality. They learn from guest speakers and educational field trips. They not only learn and grow at the same time, they also
have fun while doing it. The organization helps the young ladies discover things that they don't even know about themselves.
My name is
Ameisha, and I have been in Young Women on the Move for three great years. It has been fun. I have met a lot of different people that I have things in
common with. I have built such a strong relationship with these girls that I can talk to them about anything. I enjoy the college visits and other
field trips that we go on. I like the fact that I have been having fun and learning at the same time.
One of the main things
that we work on is goal setting. The coordinators help us achieve these goals. By the end of the year, the young ladies in the group will have been
transformed into young women. I remember how I used to be shy and wasn't a very well-rounded person. In my second year in the program, I learned how
to carry myself as a young lady.
This organization is based on meeting weekly, but we also get out and learn more about
reality. It leads us girls on the right path. This organization helped me determine what I want to do for a living. I want to help young ladies and be
a positive role model in their lives. I would like to mentor the girls and help them stay focused on their goals and dreams. I think it is really nice
to have a positive role model in your life, and Young Women on the Move can offer that and so much more. I enjoy coming back every year because year
after year it gets better and better. I plan to come back and help out after I graduate.
Ameisha
Hunter
Ameisha has recently been accepted to participate in the BRIO teen
mission trip to Lima, Peru June 30-July 13. We are especially proud of her for her courage to pursue this opportunity and want to thank the Elsberry
Family Foundation for funding a major portion of her trip. She still needs help, so click here to help Ameisha with funding.
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Just One
It's powerful to watch a young woman claim herself and her life, and it's even more
powerful when the night before the same young woman has told you she can't promise she won't try to hurt herself. I had only met Anita* one week
prior during my first session with a newly-formed group.
We were cleaning up after the session when Anita returned. Anita seemed shy,
but as we talked with her, details about her life began to come out. Out of respect to her privacy, I won't disclose the details about the
rapes, molestations, and betrayals by those who should have been protecting her. Let's just say that I was having trouble breathing as she laid out
her life; I couldn't imagine how she was surviving.
When we sat down one week later, Anita confided that she had been considering
suicide. Looking in her 18-year-old face, I knew she was ready for help, desperate for help.
My first two weeks as a volunteer with Young
Women on the Move prove that there are girls searching for help and a better way. Anita is just one of the 23 women who sat in our circle that
second week. She's just one who found the courage to use her voice and claim herself. She's just one, and the most important one that day
as we helped her check herself into a nearby hospital for help.
We were sitting in her hospital room the day after as she told me about her
dream from the night before. She explained that in the dream she was back at school, but it was many years down the road. Young Women on
the Move was there, and we were holding a group meeting just like the one she had been to on Wednesday. This time, she was standing in front of
the group telling the girls that she had been in their shoes, she had walked these halls, had their teachers, and wanted to kill herself. But,
she didn't, that Miss Delores and Miss Cherie had shown up to save her life, and she was there to save theirs.
If this young woman knows that
she can help, I know that the rest of us can, too. Being a volunteer with this group means finding a way, any small or large way, to bring hope
and help to young women. Young women are the future mothers who will teach their children what we teach them. It is with these women,
these Anitas, that we will begin to change what happens to their children. Volunteer, you just might save a life.
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Get A Move
on It!
Are you getting excited about what
we're doing and want to be a part? Friends of Young Women on the Move is a one way to get started.
Being a Friend of YWOM
means
- passing along YWOM information to your friends,
- helping fulfill
the organization's needs list,
- committing two to three hours a month to
YWOM
- attending one event or celebration a year,
- and it's FREE!
Whether you're
helping through network support or volunteer talent, "Friends will help spread the word and foster allegiance to the organization which will lead to
increased support," Board Vice President Chris Becicka explains. Becicka sees the new Friends program as an important element of the human resources
needed by the organization for its mission.
If you'd like to become a Friend but aren't sure what to do, we'll help you
figure out how to utilize your special talents and donations as needs are varied. Guest speakers can talk about topics such as health and fitness,
life skills, stress management, art, diversity, fashion, etiquette, and career opportunities. Perhaps you'd fit in as a program or field trip
assistant, mentor, "health buddy," or sponsor. There's always a need for behind-the-scenes people like special event planners, fundraisers, grant
writers, and technology and finance experts to help build the capacity of the organization and better serve the needs of the girls. Or perhaps you'd
like to help with snacks or data entry. Whatever it is you can do, we'd love to have your help, and you'll be making a
difference.
Becicka, who was instrumental in launching the Friends group with the help of Janice Blansit and Lynn Leonard, says she was drawn
to the work of YWOM by its mission to empower young women and the fact that girls in Kansas City, Kansas were underserved by the agencies already
operating. "This organization is filling a need that hasn't previously been well served," she says.
What will Friends receive in return for
their donation of time and talent? "The knowledge and satisfaction that you are making a difference by helping young women have hope and a brighter,
healthier future," according to the official YWOM Friends Program brochure. To borrow a phrase from Ira Gershwin, who could ask for anything
more?
So, click here to get started or call us at (913) 744-9139.
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Jasmine Ewing (Left) and Maria Macias (Right), our Wyandotte High School seniors for 2008. We hope all your dreams come true! |
IN 15 YEARS, WHAT
WILL MY LIFE BE?
Remember being 13 and dreaming
about your future? That's what the young women participating in YWOM's after school programs at all four schools were asked to do, to dream about
their futures and the possibilities 15 years down the road. Here are some of their responses:
"My age will be 28 years old and I will be a
nurse."
"I still live with my mom so I can help my mom pay the house bill."
"My occupation will be an FBI
agent."
"I have finished school and a goal come true is that I am by myself."
"My occupation will
be vet."
"I got a 4 year degree. I am a teacher and lots of things! I just have to follow my dreams. I would like to live in a peaceful house,
visit mom and family, give money, and be on my way."
"I still have my regular friends and I moved where it is peaceful (Japan). My goal is to
finish college."
"I will be 26 and my dream occupation by then would be testing my cure for cancer to make sure it is just right. My
responsibilities would still be to help take care of my family and I will try to let me and my family live near each other so if something happens or
something goes wrong then I'll be right there so I can help them. My friends and family will always be close to me and I'll never let anyone change
that! I will live in a big kind neighborhood that helps everyone and I'll be in heaven if I can have just that."
"My favorite job is being a
cop. When I'm on the street and see something wrong, I catch them!"
"My job will be a therapist. My responsibilities will be to take care of
families. My greatest accomplishment is that I have helped many people with their emotions"
It was important to give the girls permission to
dream. Their responses, Executive Director Mary Beth Gentry explains, are helping program staff members understand each girl's awareness of herself
and her possibilities. "The premise is that a person's full potential for achievement is controlled by her beliefs, habits and expectations," Gentry
says.
The letters attest to dreams big and small, the importance of family, and the longing for a peaceful, quiet community.
The letters also show that for these girls, the dreams are still alive and that they are looking for a way to create them. YWOM is part of their tools
for building those dreams.
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