Women's Leadership Project: Zerhour

Sunday, June 20, 2010

A Day of Remembrance

On March 31st, the Women’s Leadership Project (WLP) and Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) held a Day of Remembrance commemorating youth lost to gang violence, HIV/AIDS, hate crime and domestic abuse. The event featured an assembly with original GSA and WLP skits, music, poetry readings and dedications to loved ones. Speaker Isaiah Whiteside gave a moving talk about being HIV positive and reflected on the risk factors/challenges of living with HIV for youth of color. The students gathered in the quad during lunch time for a celebration in which reflections and letters from audience participants were collected, tied to balloons and released from the quad stage in a “Letters to Heaven” ceremony. The students passed out grief and mental health resource information and did peace/love face painting for participants. A mural with all of the contributions was mounted in the main hall of the school.

California Women’s Conference

On October 22nd thirteen Women’s Leadership Project students attended the Governor’s Women’s Conference with 500 invited high school students from across the state. Speakers included Condoleeza Rice, journalist Christiane Amanpour and civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman. Students who participated were required to complete thirty hours of community service and send in an evaluation of their outreach to the California Women’s Foundation

Women's Leadership Project

The Women’s Leadership Project (WLP) is a feminist service learning program designed to educate and train young
middle and high school age women in South Los Angeles to take ownership of their school-communities. Since 2006 WLP
has been based at South L.A. high schools like Gardena and Washington Prep High School. Using a humanist curriculum with a social justice lens, the goal of the program is to empower young women of color to develop their own voices, increase their self-esteem, foster healthy relationships, promote critical consciousness about and activism around race, gender, and LGBT equality, and prepare for college and careers. WLP guides young women through public advocacy
projects of their own choosing, toward helping them develop and sharpen their critical thinking, writing, organizing and leadership skills. This year's cohort has been accepted to several UC and Cal State campuses in addition to out-of-state
colleges like Syracuse University and the University of Oregon and won prestigious awards such as the Horatio Alger and Posse Foundation scholarships.