Special Entertainment from 40th Anniversary Celebration

 

Local singer/songwriter Charmaine Douglas (aka “Solonah the Essence”) sang as we took a break from the power talks. Here is one of her songs accompanied by guitarist Na’Vayah Chatman:

 

 

When we returned from the break, Pamela Zeller of WISE explained the work her organization does to empower young women. Lady Midnight introduced a video she created with youth about healthy relationships.

 

I am the executive director of WISE, which is Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment. We’ve been around since 1995 and we work exclusively with immigrant and refugee girls, women, and female-identified youth and adults. The organization was started by immigrant women and their allies because they recognized that the same opportunities weren’t afforded to them as far as higher education, employment, economics.

Currently we have about four programs. One is Girls Getting Ahead in Leadership, serving sixth through 12th graders. It focuses on self-empowerment, leadership development, financial literacy, career exploration, academic support, support in acquiring academic English language skills, and really learning how to take up space and be heard. When these girls come to their first workshops, they literally whisper their name. We help them come into themselves, to take up that space, to be heard, to have opinions, to challenge the status quo, and learn how to have difficult conversations. We might role play on ‘how do I ask my parents to be able to go the school dance?’

All of our staff and board members come from immigrant and refugee backgrounds. We’re all bilingual. We’re all bicultural. It’s an amazing space to work in.

We also have the We Lead program, which is anything post secondary: certification, job training, associates, bachelor. Some go on for master’s degrees. Most of them come through GGAL and then go into the We Lead program.

We have Healthy Relationships, where we focus on gender-based violence prevention. We talk about healthy peer relationships, and then we talk about healthy romantic relationships. We found that no one is talking to these girls about healthy romantic relationships. It’s about ‘don’t have sex, don’t get pregnant.’ That’s it. So we talk to them about healthy, reproductive health and rights. We talk to them about consent and boundaries. What is a healthy friendship? What is power and control? What are some toxic behaviors? How do you negotiate and compromise?

We have a parent encouragement program that is the most difficult, because our parents don’t speak the same languages. They’re often working two and three jobs. The older kids are supervising the younger kids; they’ve taken on adult responsibilities because they speak English. They’re helping their siblings with homework. Even having the time to have parents come and interact, it’s really challenging, but we keep doing that.

One of the pieces that we do for our gender-based violence prevention is that we create music videos. Lady Midnight, who is this amazing human being with a beautiful soul, is a gifted songwriter and singer. She has won many awards. She’s also my daughter. I will let her talk to you about the work that she does.

 

 

I’m the artist Lady Midnight. I have been a youth worker for over 20 years. Mostly the work that I do is holding space for youth to be able to express themselves in all types of ways. For almost 10 years, I’ve been leading groups of youth and creating original songs. Sometimes they’re attached to themes. Other times it’s cultivating whatever it is that they’re interested in learning.

I do this work not because I’m trying to make mini Lady Midnights around the world, although that would be really cool, but I do this work because I want to empower youth to have a space in which they can cultivate confidence — but also be able to fail safely in an environment.

I used to work at the Walker Art Museum for a number of years, and one of the things that stuck with me was that art is a safe place for unsafe ideas. It was an honor to be able to lead this group of young girls in creating this video. What you’re going to see is the video “Chain,” which illustrates how toxic cycles can begin by victims mimicking the behavior of their abuser. In new relationships, through the act of self reflection and acceptance, the victim becomes a survivor and chooses to break the cycle of abuse by building her self worth and setting boundaries for her future. I hope you enjoy it.