How We're Unique
Goals and Impact
Girls RAP
STAGES


Powerful Voices helps girls reach their potential by instilling confidence and offering guidance to high risk teenagers and girls in juvenile detention.
Powerful Voices | Because Strong Girls Become Strong Women

Girls Rights! Action! Power!

Girls RAP (Rights! Action! Power!), a youth development program for 10-14 year old girls, serves approximately 180 participants each year in five Seattle public middle schools. Girls at Denny, Hamilton, and Washington Middle Schools participate in after-school groups and one-on-one mentoring. Girls at Aki Kurose and Meany Middle School participate in weekly girls’ health class and ongoing one-on-one referral support. Girls RAP encourages girls to cross the social divides in their schools. Girls of different ethnicities, cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, ages and interests come together to form relationships marked by respect and collaboration. By working together, girls form relationships across many barriers, and gain the support they need to face the challenges and opportunities of adolescence. Additionally, Girls RAP serves:

  • girls of color, many who are also low-income;
  • a range of academic levels: some girls in the program excel in school, while others are struggling;
  • a range of family support: some have a strong network; others have tenuous family support.

Denny, Hamilton, Washington Middle Schools: Weekly After School Groups & Bi-weekly One-on-One Mentoring
Girls’ groups meet weekly with skilled instructors to investigate the issues and concerns most relevant to them throughout the academic year. Girls choose to reflect on and discuss issues such as body image, racism, cultural identity, stereotyping, media messages and school bullying. Each school group selects a project subject to which they explore one subject in depth. Past activities included collage, dance, games and creative writing. Girls and instructors present their projects at an end-of-year celebration where parents, families, friends and staff (from their schools as well as Powerful Voices) come to honor their accomplishments. Every other week staff or volunteers offer one-on-one mentoring. This is focused time to discuss, strategize and evaluate concrete ways girls can transfer what they learned from group to the bigger canvas of their lives. Girls talk about their goals, joys and struggles with their mentors, who both support the girls by listening to their experiences and perspectives without judgment and connect girls with a wealth of community information and referral services.

Aki Kurose & Madrona Middle Schools: Powerful Choices Health Class and One-on-One Referral Support
The Powerful Choices weekly health class is at Aki Kurose and Madrona Seattle public middle schools. The class is a standard 45-minute in-school session where 7th & 8th grade girls earn credit while learning valuable information specifically geared towards the needs of adolescent girls. Topics include their bodies, healthy relationships, community resources, social justice, dangers of addiction and more. The class curriculum is designed to help girls build diverse peer groups marked by respect, think critically about the messages they receive, identify their personal goals and values, gain self-confidence, express their opinions and connect to their schools. The class is intended to be a “portable” curriculum adapted for use by middle school staff partners and trained volunteers/interns. It serves to address the void in generalized health curriculum by focusing on the emotional and relational aspects of gender specific health decision-making.

Four-Week Summer Leadership Camp
Each summer, girls from all five schools participate in a four-week intensive leadership and educational day camp where they can develop positive relationships with girls from the other Girls RAP schools and explore issues and build skills in greater depth. Girls develop and practice their leadership skills to have strong, positive impacts in their schools and communities. They are charged with creating a safe place where all girls can come together and speak their minds and be themselves. Summer activities include education on media literacy, team building, fostering positive girl culture, public speaking, journal writing, recreational fieldtrips, community service projects and health education (i.e., relationships, body image, fears, insecurities). All girls participate in a culminating event with an audience of community partners, family members and other supportive adults. Girls not only lead activities at the closing event, they showcase their summer’s work and are acknowledged for their accomplishments.

Powerful Outreach Program (Staffed by AmeriCorps Volunteer)
The Powerful Outreach Program deepens the community’s understanding of Powerful Voices, sparking involvement in a larger grassroots movement of community involvement in youth and girls advocacy. This project trains a core group of volunteers in PV representation and core curriculum facilitation. The volunteer group is comprised of both adults and youth, relying primarily on existing organizational connections to PV alumnae, girls currently in PV programs, past/existing volunteers, board members, and the larger PV family. These volunteers represent PV, inform the community of our organization, and teach the community about issues facing girls today and ways to work more effectively with girls.