April is an exciting month for Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring Program. On April 12, They’re All the Same Girl, written by our founder Kelly Fair, was launched and is now available to you! To celebrate this huge milestone, we will be featuring an excerpt from the book each week on the blog.
This week’s excerpt comes from the chapter titled, “Youth Development in the Black Community”. Continue reading
April is an exciting month for Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring Program. We are launching our book! On April 12, They Are All the Same Girl, written by our founder Kelly Fair, will be available for purchase. To celebrate this huge milestone, we will be featuring an excerpt from the book each week on the blog.
This week’s excerpt comes from the chapter titled, “Figuring Out What Our Kids and Communities Need”.
Being a great mentor is not about becoming a pro at the blame game. The children in our community catch enough of a bad rap from the media. We’re all bombarded with news stories that constantly paint our children as animals without ever acknowledging or analyzing the economic or social factors that plague our communities. These factors predispose our children to exhibiting problematic behaviors in the first place. So the last thing our kids need is more people who are dead set on criticizing them. And, in my opinion, you’ll never be an effective youth mentor if this is the mindset with which you approach mentoring opportunities. Unfortunately, our youth may be experiencing too much negativity at home, and sometimes from inexperienced or uncaring educators at school. Too many of our children are carrying mental and emotional burdens most adults are ill-equipped to manage. A mentor that adds to that negativity, even if they are well-intentioned, is misguided and not the least bit admirable. (28-29)
We need to support our girls, our youth. And that means we need to start where they are at–be at their level. If we fail to do so, we won’t truly know the youth in our mentoring program! Which means we will be using assumptions and stereotypes to guide programming. As is mentioned in the excerpt above, “a mentor that adds to that negativity…is misguided”. Break down this barrier by being open to conversation and educating yourself.
Don’t be afraid to admit there is something you don’t know. We all have something to learn!
With They Are All The Same Girl Kelly Fair delivers turn-key tactics and shares insight on successfully garnering support from volunteers, schools, civic and corporate partners. The book offers personal testimonies from volunteers, program staff and candid community conversations that will prepare aspiring social entrepreneurs, and your organization, to build a generation of girls on the path to personal and professional success!
Interested in purchasing They Are All the Same Girl? Click here…
Women’s Herstory Month is only one month out of twelve. But this doesn’t mean women do not carry importance for the other eleven. The United Nations has made it a priority to address women and gender equality for humanitarian action. Continue reading
This past Tuesday, on March 22, herstory was made. Congress will now be able to raise their voice on issues facing black women and girls thanks to three Representatives: Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) and Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.). Continue reading
Living in a male dominant society, women are directly and indirectly told that we are not enough. Women may go through life believing that something is missing from themselves and we have to find it to have success, friends, love, and happiness. This can lead to a sense of competitiveness with other women: What does she have that I don’t? And how do I get it? And this competition starts at a young age. Continue reading
Women have come a long way since first becoming major players in the workforce. No longer delegated to “women’s work”, we are making waves! In fact, it seems that each generation of women is setting their sights higher and higher when it comes to career aspirations. Continue reading
It is the beginning of March which means we say “hello” to Women’s History Month. Last month we celebrated Black History Month. As we live in a male dominant society, black men tend to be the stars–Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson to name a few. And then we transition into Women’s History Month where black women tend to fall short on the lists of notable figures. Now, there’s a problem with this….what about black women? When do we celebrate them? Continue reading
As February comes to an end, we are supposed to say “goodbye” to Black History Month. Ridiculous, right? We all know that black history cannot be confined to one month out of the year as it is so engrained into … Continue reading
For this week’s post we want to throw it back to Kelly Fair’s response to this catcalling video. February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month and we want to draw attention to this important topic. A contributing factor to dating violence is our culture surrounding gender, sex, and sexuality. Issues such as catcalling may seem small, but they play a part in our society. Continue reading
We want to take the time to learn from such a man, Kevin Brookins. Kevin Brookins is the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Administration at ComEd. ComEd is responsible for providing electricity to about 70% of Illinois’ population. At Polished Pebbles we are no strangers to ComEd. Kelly Fair was honored to be one of their Neighborhood Heroes a couple of years ago. ComEd and EAARA (Exelon African American Resource Alliance) have a commitment to mentoring and supporting youth, especially in STEM fields. Continue reading
Kelly Fair The Mentor 