GEN's Voice

Issue 24

June 2003

In This Issue:

An exciting clubGEN end of the year celebration was held on April 22nd for all clubGEN facilitators and sponsors to attend. Participants from every club gathered to share stories of special moments from their experience in weekly after school program for girls. Each club member was awarded a certificate of outstanding volunteer work within clubGEN. GENaustin is so proud of these young women and the influential relationships they have achieved. When asked if they would be participating in clubGEN next school year, the room nodded and cheered in a unanimous YES!

Sponsors from every club were at the celebration as well. Each club has flourished and grown largely due to the efforts of these supportive sponsors. Certificates were awarded to the sponsors as a token of thanks to our wonderful teachers.

Two very special scholarship awards were presented to two senior clubGEN facilitators. The scholarships winners were selected by a GENaustin committee, and the winners were chosen based on leadership, character, overall involvement in clubGEN, along with many other positive role model criteria.

The five hundred dollar scholarships were awarded to Marjan Abedi from Bowie High School and to Julia Samara from Westlake High School. Both girls plan to pursue degrees in the fall and to continue volunteering in their community. Marjan will attend UT Austin and plans to double major in pre-medicine and early education. This is Marjan's second year in clubGEN and her fellow facilitators describe her as "the leading inspiration in club and a role model to everyone who meets her". Julia will attend South Western University and plans to major in either social work or psychology. Julia says, "It has been wonderful to get to know younger girls and get to be a part of their lives."

I think all the young women at the end of the year celebration would agree with Julia, it has been a wonderful year and a wonderful experience for all the girls involved in clubGEN. We are looking forward to another successful year!

Kim Soechting is both a board member and the co-chair of the clubGEN committee. She has been with GENaustin since it's inception in 1996.

Kim is an enthusiastic volunteer and is always willing to go out of her way to make sure that clubGEN is successful.  She actually drove between two potential schools during rush hour to see if the commute would be too much for our HS girls!  She is even willing to roam the halls to find the best adult sponsors for the clubGEN programs.

Organized and dedicated, she single-handedly secured a large sum of money for clubGEN for the next two years by tapping into her network base and convincing her connections to invest in clubGEN.  Kim is very supportive of the clubGEN staff and helps out in any way that she can.  She's a great leader who always follows through with her commitments and is an inspiration to many. 

We at clubGEN are proud to applaud her as our volunteer for the month.  Thank you Kim!

clubGEN is an after-school mentoring program for middle school girls that runs throughout the school year. Each club is led by a group of 6 to 12 high school juniors and seniors. Studies have proven that providing role models who are just a few years older can have a profound influence.  clubGEN’s mentoring and peer education approach also benefits our high school mentors, as studies show young women experience a boost in self-esteem by participating in meaningful volunteering experiences.

The clubs are also supported by a by a minimum of two adults. Together, the high school leaders and adult sponsors receive extensive training, arming them with leadership and facilitation skills, as well as information on adolescent health topics.

Come join us as a volunteer as we further refine our model and prepare to launch outside of the central Texas area. We have opportunities for both curriculum committee members and community sponsors.

clubGEN Curriculum Committee

Responsibilities include:

- create new curriculum; for example, creating a lesson (by doing research or developing your own) on such subjects as body image, self-_expression, communication, deciding a future career, etc.

- edit existing curriculum

- get price quotes for printing and binding

- contact curriculum sources (i.e., authors, publishers) to ask for permission to use their content

clubGEN Community Sponsor

Community Sponsors are trained by GENaustin staff and assigned to one clubGEN (one middle school and one high school). Responsibilities include:

- attend clubGEN planning meetings and club meetings if school sponsors cannot attend

- conduct a monitoring visit of the club to check in with the girls and evaluate the progress of the club

- gather data from the clubs

- conduct one meeting each year to renew or recruit a new school sponsor for the upcoming year

If you’re interested in any of these opportunities, please contact Barb Steinberg at [email protected].

At the Use Your Words Writing Camp Summer 2003, local author Spike Gillespie will guide kids through writing projects that strengthen reading and writing skills, encourage a deep love of words, and are extremely entertaining. Gillespie is an essayist, novelist, poet, and reporter with twenty years of writing and editing experience. She writes regularly for National Geographic World Magazine for kids and she frequently gives writing workshops to AISD students.

There are nine one-week sessions from the beginning of June through the end of July. All sessions are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. The cost for each session is $120 (session 5, July 4th week, is $100). Full scholarships available. For more information go to http://www.SpikeG.com/camp.htm or call 512-454-7010 or email [email protected].

Several new books provide helpful advice for the parents of teens.

"When We're in Public, Pretend You Don't Know Me: Surviving Your Daughter's Adolescence So You Don't Look Like an Idiot and She Still Talks to You" by Susan Borowitz and Ava L. Siegler

This book from a former Hollywood writer and producer and a child psychologist encourages mothers to be the Uncool Mom, a loving authority figure, who neither babies or tries to be just like her teen. The book includes the following tidbits:

- Offer sympathy and support rather than solutions. "The whole point of the teenage years is to give your daughter some time and space to learn how to get along in life without you."

- Never give an opinion while clothes shopping. If you want to discourage or encourage certain choices, enlist help of sales staff.

- Depersonalize your ideas. Rather than say, "I think you should . . ." take a more neutral approach, such as, "There was this great new acne medicine at the drugstore."

- "No" is the answer to "Don't you trust me?" Say, "I trust you in terms of being a good person, but I don't necessarily trust how mature you are to make the right decisions."

"Saving Beauty From the Beast: How To Protect Your Daughter From An Unhealthy Relationship" by Vicki Crompton and Ellen Zelda Kessner

Unfortunately, relationship violence is not uncommon. A study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that one out of five high-school girls said they had been physically or sexually assaulted by someone they were dating. And it can happen to any girl, no matter how confident or athletic or smart or popular. In this book, Crompton offers advice based on her own real life experiences with teen violence. Crompton’s daughter was killed at age 15 by an ex-boyfriend. She has also worked with other families of teenage girls in violent relationships.

Some advice from the book:

- Watch for an ultraromantic, whirlwind start to the relationship. The boy is charming, seductive, romantic, intense and completely devoted to the girl. "If a girl has no experience with love, ultrapossessiveness feels like love."

- Don't set up a Romeo-and-Juliet situation by forbidding the romance. Talk about how a healthy relationship works. Set limits on how much time they spend alone.

- Never cut her off emotionally or physically. This is what the boyfriend wants, because it gives him even more control.

- If you fear she is in immediate physical danger, take radical action such as sending her to live with relatives in another state.

"Trust Me, Mom -- Everyone Else Is Going!': The New Rules For Mothering Adolescent Girls" by Roni Cohen-Sandler

Cohen-Sandler, a psychologist, offers concrete examples of what to say and not to say when communicating with your adolescent daughter. She uses the acronym BRAIN to remind parents how to relate to their kids: Be respectful, attuned, involved, and noncontrolling.

Some helpful tips from the book:

- Cut off the conversation when it's no longer constructive. "If your dialogue continues for what seems like forever or goes around in circles, recognize that discussing has probably become badgering."

- Tailor her curfew to the situation. Ask, "What is the most reasonable hour to return home after a particular activity?" A set curfew can work against parents because teens will find something to kill the time before they're required to be home.

- Volunteer to drive. "Chauffeuring groups of teens offers invaluable opportunities to get a keener view of their social life."

At the Power Girls Personal Safety and Empowerment Camp, girls will have fun learning vital personal protection and violence avoidance skills. Women instructors teach boundary setting, assertive verbal language, and making safe choices in an empowering, girl-oriented format. The camp uses age-appropriate language to prepare the participants to respond in the safest possible way in emergency situations, and all techniques are practical and easy to learn. For girls ages 6-16, June 16-20, 8 am – noon, $125 tuition includes instruction, lunch, and a t-shirt. For more information contact Sun Dragon Women's Martial Arts, 416-9735, www.sundragon-martialarts.com.

GENaustin's programs are made possible through the generous support of 3M, Alice Kleberg Reynolds Meyer Foundation Applied Materials, Austin Ventures, Brown McCarroll, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Hogg Foundation, IBM, Milkshake Media, Southwest Airlines and Xopix Productions.

Now you can support GENaustin and its important programs simply by shopping on-line. Simply go to http://www.genaustin.org/public/content/getinvolved/shop.asp and follow the links to over 400 stores, including Barnes & Noble, Land's End, Ann Taylor, Linens-n-Things, Neiman Marcus, L.L. Bean, Dell, Amazon.com, JC Penney, Old Navy, Gap, and many more.

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This site was last updated on 04/04/2005.

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