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Happy 10th Birthday Powerful Voices!
A Letter from the Director
Ten Years Old.
It’s a milestone worth celebrating. Upon reflection Powerful Voices
can say with assurance that the world is a better place because we’ve
been around. We’ve given thousands of girls a safe place to learn
and grow. We’ve helped them see adolescence as a time of great opportunity
rather than great threat. We’ve helped them become critical thinkers
and problem-solvers and encouraged them to work proactively to make the
world a better place. The investment we’ve all made—parents,
girls, staff, donors, volunteers, board members—this investment
we’ve made has paid off.
Ten Years Ago.
In 1995, the entire landscape of support for girls was different.
Research had just begun on girls’ needs and the best practices to
serve them. Our own research revealed a gaping hole in services for at-risk
girls in our public middle schools and even more critically in juvenile
detention, where incarceration rates were soaring rapidly for girls even
as they were shrinking for boys’. As we began clarifying our vision
and building the foundations of our two programs, our community and the
rest of the nation were just beginning to draw attention to girls’
needs as different from boys. From 1995 to 2000 we saw the birth and development
of Powerful Voices, as well as other all-girl organizations in King County
like Passages Northwest, Reel Grrls, and the YWCA’s Leadership Programs
for Girls & Young Women, to name a few. Coalitions formed to foster
collaboration, and now in 2005 we can point to dozens of programs designed
to serve girls in our area. Powerful Voices remains unique and continues
to be vital to the most vulnerable girls in our community. We serve as
a model for others in the field—from Tacoma to India—demonstrating
how to serve girls through a girl-friendly lens, to avoid polarizing their
issues, and to make room for their opinions and for their answers to some
of the world’s biggest problems—to make room for their powerful
voices.
Ten Years From Now. Looking back ten years is helpful,
but looking ahead ten years is where the real opportunity
lies. While we know girls are growing up in a very complicated
world filled with negative influences, we also know that when you really
listen to a girl—when you look into her eyes and feel the urgency
of her questions—you realize that she is absolutely dauntless in
her intention to change the world. She yearns for a deep connection to
people who give her hope and access to opportunity. It’s our privilege
as staff to work alongside girls every day and to get to look into each
girl’s penetrating gaze and see her individual potential waiting
to burst out. But also revealed to us is the sad truth that for many of
these girls their potential may lay dormant—perhaps forever—unless
we take action.
As we approach our ten-year anniversary, we have an opportunity to deepen
and broaden the impact of our programs in the local and regional community.
Grounded in solid programming, strong leadership and research-based programming,
we are launching a major initiative that will increase the organization’s
annual operating budget by 50% over two years. This increased investment
will allow the organization to accomplish its three to five year strategic
objectives and to strengthen the current and future lives of girls,
their families and our community.
As Powerful Voices begins its second decade, we recognize the importance
of expanding our programs to further impact the local and regional community
of adolescent girls we serve. Girls and parents are asking for these services
and we witness the need for them every day. Best practices in the fields
of youth development and girl empowerment tell us it is time to take a
big step. In response to this need we will broaden our scope to provide
education and support to the parents and guardians of girls, increase
participation of alumnae as teen leaders in the organization, and provide
one-on-one mentoring to all of the girls in our programs. To achieve this
vision, we will increase our budget and human resources to more holistically
serve the needs of girls, their families, and our community.
Engage and Support Parents and Guardians: We
know from the national research that informs our work that engaging and
supporting parents and guardians is vital to building strong girls who
will grow into strong women. As girls continue to grow and develop, parents
and guardians can help them sustain what they learn in our programs. They
can also serve as crucial advocates on behalf of their daughters. Starting
in 2005 we will be educating parents and guardians on girls’ needs,
available resources in their communities, and ways they can reinforce
at home the skills and tools girls are receiving from our programs.
Offer Alumnae Opportunities for Girls as they Mature.
We recognize that girls who graduate from our programs are eager to build
on the skills and tools they have developed. Sustaining girls’ growth
over time requires on-going opportunities for them to stay engaged in
positive youth development. We will offer graduates new opportunities
to continue building leadership skills, critical thinking and their personal
power by serving as teen leaders with younger girls in our programs, participating
in an alumnae advisory board at Powerful Voices, and engaging in community
action.
Expand Adult Mentoring and Guidance. Since we
introduced mentoring to our programs in 2002, we have witnessed the positive
impact that adult mentors have on the girls we serve. But we are not able
to provide adult mentorship to each girl we serve. Starting in 2005, we
will expand the number of adults and peer educators who receive effective
training and support.
Growth is not new to Powerful Voices—nearly every year we enhance
what we do in order to be more effective in building strong girls into
strong women. But this year marks a significant leap, because these investments
will increase our annual operating budget by 50 percent over two years.
Work is well under way to support our growth and enhancements: we are
launching a major gifts campaign, diversifying our event revenue, and
doing more outreach and education to expand our donor base. Hundreds of
girls and their families will be helped in significantly more profound
ways as a result of this increased investment. This is the right time
and these are the right priorities for our community.
As I write these words I’m reminded that the last few months of
preparing to launch this new initiative—from dreaming about these
enhancements to making them a reality— wouldn’t have been
possible without such a strong community of support from a loyal and generous
group of donors and community partners. Thank you for everything you’ve
done to nurture and support Powerful Voices in its first ten years of
life. In 2005 I will be making myself more available to hear and respond
to your ideas, questions, and suggestions. Your input and support is vital
to our success. I look forward to hearing from you.
Warmly,
Julie Edsforth, Executive Director
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