Programs & Initiatives
Sister, Sister
Iyanla Vanzant once stated, "I am not my sister's keeper. I am my sister." Sister, Sister initiative is to empower each other through tough times. We are here to encourage, motivate, and be used as a vessel to aspire to inspire. The concept is important because it names and identifies how women of color make time for themselves, celebrate themselves, and connect.
Are you M.A.D.?
When someone performs an action that benefits his or her community, it is known as community service. Are You Making A Difference? Are you M.A.D. is our community service initiative. Many people engage in community service because they believe that it carries rewards beyond the obvious and tangible. For Brown Girls, Inc. plans to be very productive in the community. These programs/initiatives are intended to stimulate, encourage, instruct and enhance the development of their skills.
Our goal is to provide African American men, women and children with direction, apprenticeship and recreational outlets needed to empower them to become successful person in an ever changing world. It's mission is to foster opportunities to inoculate a culture of achievement primarily among school aged children. An integral part of our mission is an awareness of positive self image development.
Brown Girls Coalition: Mentoring in New Dimensions
Brown Girls Coalition is our young ladies' mentorship program. Mentoring can help youth as they go through challenging life transitions, including dealing with stressful changes at home or transitioning to adulthood. Close, healthy, supportive relationships between mentors and mentees that last for a significant portion of time are central to success.
Our work is done with an emphasis on social-emotional learning and trauma-informed practices, and the Director ensures that these commitments are consistently developed and sustained in our program environment. As our programming continues to grow, the Director will support strategic planning and help determine the future directions of our work with children, youth, and their families.
Maintaining positive relationships and communication with students, parents and other members by participating and leading programs and responding to parent concerns is priority.
Boys II Men: Mentoring to Manhood
Our Boys II Men youth men mentoring program presents opportunities for enrichment, exposure, support and guidance through supervised group mentoring sessions between our mentors and mentees. Youth mentoring refers to a relationship between youth—particularly those most at risk of experiencing negative outcomes in adolescence and adulthood—and the adults who support and guide them. Our program will provide thousands of youth aged 9 - 17 years of age, positive alternatives and a robust support network they can rely on. We will build long-lasting, caring relationships between youth and mentors, fostering each youth’s individual growth and potential. We will help to empower youth in our community to make positive life choices that enable them to maximize their potential. Our mentoring program uses adult male volunteers to commit to supporting, guiding, and leading our youth. Boys II Men: Mentoring to Manhood will launch in Summer 2025.
Jump$tart
Community Capacity Building
Gender Equity
Financial literacy gives individuals confidence that they are secure with their money philosophy. We will be hosting series of financial literacy workshops called Jump$tart in Jackson and Atlanta for people in the community to improve their understanding of financial concepts and services, so they are empowered to make informed choices and take action to improve their economic well-being.
Financial literacy is the possession of skills that allows people to make smart decisions with their money. And don’t be misled by the word literacy. Although understanding stats and facts about money is great, no one has truly grasped financial literacy until they can regularly do the right things with money that lead to the right financial outcomes. For example, if you used the number of people who don’t live paycheck to paycheck as an estimate of financial literacy, only about 20% of people would qualify! Budgeting could be another skill for measuring financial literacy. And how do Americans stack up in that department? Sadly, not even a third of people earning a paycheck (32%) stick to a budget.
Gender Equity
Community Capacity Building
Gender Equity
In Fall 2021, we plan to implement a gender equity program that educates women about their rights at home, at work, and in society. The program's goal is to expand women's access to justice and human rights, while combating gender-based violence. We would like to raise awareness about women's rights and labor laws, such as, the Protection of Women against Harassment Act, Equal Pay, and other pro-women laws. We have increasingly focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion in our culture, operations, and grantmaking.
The importance of this work became more apparent over the past year marked by overdue reckonings about racial, gender, and global inequities. We believe that combating systemic inequities requires us to adjust not just the way we fund, but also the way we communicate. We remain committed to doing so, and to accelerating efforts to shift power, decision-making, and resources closer to the communities we seek to serve.
Community Capacity Building
Community Capacity Building
Community Capacity Building
Community capacity building is about promoting the ‘capacity’ of local communities to develop, implement and sustain their own solutions to problems in a way that helps them shape and exercise control over their physical, social, economic and cultural environments. Community health is a medical specialty that focuses on the physical and mental well-being of the people in a specific geographic region.
Working at the community level promotes healthy living, helps prevent chronic diseases and brings the greatest health benefits to the greatest number of people in need.
Mental and physical health are fundamentally linked. There are multiple associations between mental health and chronic physical conditions that significantly impact people’s quality of life. Understanding the links between mind and body is the first step in developing strategies to reduce the incidence of co-existing conditions and support those already living with mental illnesses and chronic physical conditions. The purpose of this initiative is to influence the health behavior of individuals and communities positively. Our goal is to promote optimal wellness to subdue stress, reduce the risk of illness and ensure healthy lifestyles.
FANNIE LOU HAMER INSTITUTE
Youth Leadership Program
Fannie Lou Hamer Institute fosters understanding, respect, and civic engagement among other leaders. Leadership development expands the capacity of individuals to perform leadership roles within organizations. Leadership roles facilitate the execution of a strategy by building alignment and growing the capabilities of others. In the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute, students will participate in workshops, community service activities, team-building exercises, meetings with community leaders, and leadership development activities. The Fannie Lou Hamer Institute is a (4) month leadership program beginning the 2025 academic school year. Our primary focus is advocacy and social action.
For Brown Girls, Inc. believes that youth development is a process that prepares a young person to meet the challenges of adolescence and adulthood and achieve his or her full potential. Youth development will be promoted through activities and experiences that help youth develop social, ethical, emotional, physical, and cognitive competencies.
Interested youth scholars must be:
- U.S. Citizen - based on the guidelines utilized by the U.S. Department of Education for Federal Financial Aid eligibility
- Current high school students attending a school in Jackson Metro Area are classified as a sophomore and junior in the upcoming academic school year.
- Cumulative academic GPA of 2.5
- Minority status is a significant factor in acceptance decisions
Mission
The Fannie Lou Hamer Institute is committed to creating positive environments that empower, inspire, and educate all teens to discover and maximize their unique leadership potential and embrace everyone's diversity and equal value.
"Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over." ~ Fannie Lou Hamer
For Brown Girls, Inc. Program Goals:
Physical development
- Good health habits
- Good health risk management skills
Intellectual development
- Critical thinking and reasoning skills
- Knowledge of essential life and vocational skills
- Good decision-making skills
- School success
- In-depth knowledge of more than one culture
Psychological and emotional development
- Strong moral character
- Positive personal and social identity
- Good emotional self-regulation skills
- Good conflict resolution skills
- Mastery motivation and positive achievement
- Confidence in one's efficacy
- Sense of personal autonomy
- Optimism coupled with realism
- Prosocial and culturally sensitive values
Social development
- Perceived good relationships and trust with parents, peers, and some other adults
- Sense of social place/integration
- Ability to navigate in multiple cultural contexts
- Commitment to civic engagement
What You Need to Know
Introducing the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute as our new initiative will recognize youths' strengths and promote positive development rather than address isolation risks. Youth who are constructively involved in learning and doing and connected to positive adults and peers are less likely to engage in risky or self-defeating behaviors.
As children move through their developmental stages, they acquire a set of personal assets or supports that help them face the challenges and opportunities ahead. These assets allow youth to become resilient. Their ability to thrive depends significantly on the support and assistance from the people and institutions around them.
Providing the conditions for positive youth development is a responsibility shared by families, schools, and communities. The requirements for healthy youth development reside in families, schools, and communities. For Brown Girls, Inc. will promote healthy youth development by:
- advocating for youth
- monitoring youths' behavior
- modeling positive, responsible, and healthy behavior
- youth model positive, trustworthy, and healthy behavior
"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader."
~John Quincy Adams
Youth leadership is part of the youth development process. It supports the young person in developing: (a) the ability to analyze his or her strengths and weaknesses, set personal and vocational goals, and have the self-esteem, confidence, motivation, and skills to carry them out, including the ability to establish support networks to participate in community life fully and affect positive social change; and (b) the ability to guide or direct others on a course of action, influence the opinions and behaviors of others, and serve as a role model.
.jpg/:/rs=w:370,cg:true,m)
