Helping girls build a foundation for future

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 28, 2007 at 12:30 a.m.

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Be strong, smart and bold.

That's what Girls Inc. of Metro Denver has instilled in girls since 1983.

The agency, which has applied for Season to Share funding, offers educational programs that encourage girls to master challenges, build self-esteem, and achieve confident and responsible adulthood.

In this interview, Carol Bowar, vice president of program services for Girls Inc. of Metro Denver, offers details about how the agency operates.

How did you come to Girls Inc.?

I've spent my career in nonprofits. I had always done a lot of leadership curriculum development, but also women's issues. I was looking to be involved in girls' and women's issues and to be in a community-based organization that delivered services.

Tell me a little about what you do and how you do it.

We serve girls from 6 to 18 after school and at summer day camp. We do a lot of prevention around sexuality, drug abuse, and we also do a lot of leadership building. All of our leadership building is gender-specific, and it's done in a gender-specific environment.

We have a West Denver center where we do after-school programs every day, and then every year we partner with between 40 and 60 community partners - schools, juvenile justice facilities, YMCA.

We have our youth program, which focuses on girls in first grade to sixth grade, and all of our programming is age-appropriate. In our youth program, we'll focus on different program areas in different sessions through the school year. Our first program is focused on leadership and social skill building. Allies in Action builds social competencies around peer pressure and also relational aggression, which is big in girls, when they start to fight. We also focus a lot on academic enrichment, so girls have homework help and tutoring every day.

What are the specific activities the girls are involved in?

Our fifth- and sixth-graders built dance mats that lit up. It was kind of like electronic engineering.

And then we also do media literacy, we do financial or economic literacy.

In the teen program, girls help us to understand what they want and what their needs are. Girls Action Project, where they really focus and learn about social issues, and then they create a community service project that is part of that. Last year, they did a whole series of workshops around racism, and combating racism. . . . Get a Life is a life-skills-development class. It's a lot of economic literacy. They also have been shopping on a budget; they learn how to ride public transportation.

Which program has been the most moving for you?

The classes we see a lot of "aha's" from are our college prep class called Mi Avenida, helping girls understand how to get into college, how to choose a college that's right with them. And job readiness training, understanding how to look for a job, what jobs pay, what the expectations are, what the dominant culture expects from a working person.

Are there girls whose progress particularly excites you?

Every single day. It's amazing. I've been here seven years, so the girls who were here in third grade are now high schoolers. Watching girls grow up here has been amazing. Girls are so aware of what's happening in their communities, and understanding what's happening to them. Watching them learn where their strengths are has been one of the most powerful things I've seen.

Girls Inc. of Metro Denver

Mission: Inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold through prevention and empowerment programming.

Year founded: Nationally, 1864; locally, 1983

Staff: 23

Volunteers: 189 with a fundraising arm of 400

Budget: $1.4 million

Contact: www.girlsincden ver.org

How to donate

Post-News Season To Share, a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, gave more than $1.79 million to 62 agencies serving children, as well as people who are hungry, homeless or in need of medical care last year. Donations are matched at 50 cents for each dollar, and 100 percent of all donations go directly to local charitable agencies. To make a donation, see the coupon on NEWS 33 of today's paper, call 1-888-683-4483 or visit seasontoshare.com

• December 28, 2007

  8:57 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  tmccandlish writes:

  Girls Inc. is a great organization! I also have an organization, The Triumph Organization, that empowers girls and women to stand against relational aggression. To learn more about it, go to www.thetriumphorganization.org. I am also the author of Flying Grounded: My Spiritual Triumph Over Female Bullying, which is available at www.iuniverse.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, or www.tamimccandlish.com.

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