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Young Essence Ladies...Learning (YELL!)
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Welcome
to YELL! where
female
minority students learn coping skills
through mentorship and program support
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Promote positive self esteem |
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Redirect them to graduate from high school |
As young ladies begin to develop during puberty, school,
family and self-identity begin to take shape, they begin
to have conflicting emotions about themselves, boys and
life in general. Through these identity crises, it
becomes critical for young ladies to become connected
with people who genuinely care about them and their
well-being.
YELL! provides and opportunity for them to be surrounded
by females of all ages who will nurture and encourage
them to be all that they are capable of being and
empower them to be their best through mentorship and
education.
Professional ladies (and men) embrace girls between the
ages of 13- 19 years old. They expose them to real-life
experiences in the school, church, community and
business world. They support these young ladies and help
them "blossom" into professional ladies through positive
interaction and exposure. This is done at job trainings,
workshops, seminars, field trips, and fun activities
based on curriculum created by Essence of a Lady, Inc.
History
In 1999, Young Essence Ladies...Learning (YELL) was
conceptualized as a way for high school girls to help
build their self-esteem by becoming peer mentors to
middle school girls and middle girls would do the same
thing for elementary girls in the 5th grade. Although
the idea was great, YELL was only realized on paper and
never materialized at the high school and middle school. Sholann Ajayi-Figgs was a part of the initial planning
stage. She helped come up with the concept and she was
recruiting her friends in high school.
August, 2003, YELL was registered with the National
Mentor Partnership at mentor.org. While living in
Atlanta, Georgia, the founder, JoAnn Ajayi-Scott was
actively involved in another all-girl empowerment
organization called Cool Girls, Inc. She was the middle
school liaison, a volunteer, and Cool Sister to one of
the young ladies. As mentors were referred to her, she
would submit them to Cool Girls.
In February, 2005, under the direction of JoAnn Ajayi-Scott,
the first chartered YELL program was founded at Gamble
Rogers Middle School, in St. Johns County School
District in St. Augustine, Florida. Rose Reese and
several other teachers were sponsors and JoAnn Ajayi-Scott
was the consultant. As the mentoring consultant, I
coordinated mentee and mentors. I worked directly with
Women Celebration, an organization that promoted
self-empowerment of all ladies, to recruit mentors. In
December, 2005, I moved back to Houston, Texas to
remarry.
In February, 2006, the second chartered YELL program
began in Houston, Texas. Most of the young ladies were
recruited from Alief Elsik High School. Over 10 high
school girls participated workshops, peer mentoring with
another young girls group called Lady L.O.V.E., and
other planned fun activities until May,2006.
In January, 2008, five mentors were trained and
participated in group mentorship with girls through
workshops, real-life experiences through field trips and
job training for the summer. YELL! mentees attended the
first Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Building
Careers Workshop. They had an opportunity to attend "An
Evening with Diana Ross" through the Brilliant Lecture
Series. With opportunities such as this, the girls truly
flourished and enjoyed the opportunities afforded them.
The following 2008-2009 school year, YELL! expanded to
the Hastings Ninth Grade Center(HNGC) with Dr.
Jacqueline Armwood as principal. Through her support,
Treva Clark, Communities in Schools (CIS) program
manager worked collaboratively with JoAnn Ajayi-Scott on
establishing a YELL! cohort to promote self-esteem
through a weekly group mentoring session during 6th
period. As the program continued to grow, Ta Shunda
Joiner, a HNGC Classroom Learning Center (CLC)
intervention teacher was recruited to work directly with
Gloria Lucas, YELL! program and mentor coordinator.
Through collaboration with HNGC and the recruitment of
support through Elsik High SchoolĄ¯s Peer-Assisted
Leadership (PAL), YELL! gained support of the peer
mentoring program. Four field trips were planned to
provide positive interactions in a positive environment
as co-curricular to the weekly group mentoring of
first-time and second or more year ninth grade secondary
female students along with the PALs. Going to the CREW
Building Careers program to the Houston Zoo, we had over
40 students, chaperones, and tag-alongs aboard the
school-funded busses. The Mother-Daughter Day was just
as successful. We had over 10 female students and their
mothers, along with about 10 mentors serving and
pampering them with food, fun, and entertainment. We
closed the year with a Mentor-Mentee Weekend at Piney
Shores Resort in Conroe, Texas. Approximately 20 female
students, 10 mentors, and six tag-alongs enjoyed
swimming, playing games, and eating BBQ while special
recognitions were presented to mentees and mentors.
Finally, for the first time, we piloted matching mentees
with mentors for the summer.
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