Girl Powered: 7 Programs Preparing Future Leaders

From a career readiness group for health care hopefuls to political camps and tiny home projects, these local programs are laying down the groundwork for our leading ladies of tomorrow.

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This feature was written by Studio MSP writers. While some of our advertisers were sourced, no advertiser paid to be included.

We hate to brag (wait, do we?), but a number of local women and their contributions to society have helped put the star in North Star State over the years: Sister Elizabeth Kenny made polio and paralysis breakthrough treatments with Mayo Clinic; Gratia Countryman envisioned a greater Minneapolis Public Library system by providing foreign language books; and Frances Densmore created thousands of recordings of Native American music.

Now we have Lakeville swim star,  Tokyo 2020—bound Regan Smith; Ilhan Omar representing our fifth district; and Amy Klobuchar throwing her presidential hat in the ring.

You betcha Minnesota women are amazing—but even amazing women need help sometimes. These seven girl-powered programs are the incubators for our next-gen  leaders and community stewards.

Girls Getting Ahead in Leadership (GGAL)

Today’s savvy middle schoolers and high schoolers are tomorrow’s leaders. Girls Getting Ahead in Leadership (GGAL), the flagship program at Minnesota-based Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment (WISE), teaches life skills to girls in grades 6 through 12 with classes like financial literacy, career exploration, and healthy relationships. Schoolwork support prepares girls for postsecondary options, and a local college student mentor shows a glimpse of life beyond lockers. GGAL also strives to nurture two-way partnerships with parents and students, a large factor in teen success. Girls can participate during the 2019—2020 school year at Washington Technology Magnet School, Monday through Friday from 1:45 to 3 pm and Monday and Wednesday from 3 to 5 pm, and at Oromo Community of Minnesota on Tuesday and Thursday from 4 to 5:30 pm. womenofwise.org

Girls in Politics

Women belong in the House, the Senate, and the White House. And some of today’s girls will be getting there through their participation in political camps. Girls in Politics is an international organization aimed at educating young women in their nation’s political system. At Camp Congress for Girls, 8-to15-year-olds learn about the nation’s political structure through running for the House of Representatives, the Senate, or the presidency. Girls design a campaign, vote, introduce a bill, lobby, and vote on the bill. At the Daughter and Mother Camp Congress for Girls, moms manage their daughters’ platform, slogan, campaign finance plan, marketing materials, and TV ad. With Politics,

Advocacy & Political Careers for Girls, a one-day session for girls 14 through 17,  participants have the opportunity to learn the history of women in politics and the various political roles available to women. Participants in all programs also meet women in political professions. girlsinpolitics.org

STEPS 

For the last 20 years, 200 6th- and 8th-grade girls have poured onto the University of St. Thomas’s south campus in St. Paul for five one-day engineering camps. Science, Technology, & Engineering Preview Summer (STEPS) teaches young girls about engineering through hands-on projects. “It’s aimed at showing young women how they might be able to solve problems of the future using the engineering design process,” says Deb Besser, civil engineering chair at St. Thomas. In a field where about 20 percent of graduates are women and fewer continue in the workforce, Besser says, STEPS has a marked influence on young girls’ desire to go into engineering. “Frankly, all it’s going to take is for teachers and guidance counselors—sometimes even parents—to help girls understand that they can do it,” says Besser.

The program also has a higher rate of underrepresented populations not typically exposed to engineering professions. Applications open for STEPS 2020 on January 1. stthomas.edu/stepscamp

Fun Fact: 2019 STEPS leaders Elise Rodich and Becca Leininger are also graduates of the program.

Health Care Ambassadors

The staff at Girls Inc., a national nonprofit that teaches confidence, health, and independence to young girls, spotted a hole in career readiness programming. Through YWCA Minneapolis, Health Care Ambassadors (HCA) was born. Started in 2018, the program consists of roughly 15 high school girls—mostly from Minneapolis public schools—who meet during the school year to discuss health care issues, tackle research projects, and take field trips. “Health care is a field that has high disparities and lack of representation, especially for women of color,” says Elena Gustafson, Girls Inc. afterschool programming coordinator. HCA helps girls land internships and job shadowing in health care professions. Topics range from industry basics and reproductive rights to specific medical professions. Gustafson says the program involves “looking from a social justice lens at the health care disparity.” ywcampls.org/girlsinc 

“Healthcare is a field that has high disparities and lack of representation, especially for women of color.” 

—Elena Gustafson, Girls Inc. 

Women Empowering Women for Indigenous Nations

Valerie Harrington, a member of Minnesota’s Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, attended her first Women Empowering Women for Indigenous Nations (WEWIN) national conference in 2011. “From that first time attending, I got higher confidence in myself,” says Harrington. “I thought about more opportunities I should do, so I started volunteering in my community, [and] I went back to school.” The organization focuses on Native women’s issues, empowerment, and leadership. Mille Lacs WEWIN is the first nationally recognized local WEWIN chapter. Harrington says Native women have traditionally been behind the scenes, advising and assisting in tribal leadership, but are now stepping up to lead. “I feel grateful that we have that opportunity here, and we have amazing women leadership in our tribe,” she says. Native women are invited to attend the 2020 WEWIN conference on July 27–29 in Alpine, California. wewin04.org

Jeremiah Program

Headquartered in Minneapolis, this national program helps single mothers and their children break the cycle of poverty through empowerment and education for both generations. Jeremiah Program provides career track education, empowerment coaching, life skills development, and safe, affordable housing for families, as both mothers and children attend school and work toward career goals. Through one-on-one coaching and empowerment sessions, participants learn economic independence, physical and emotional health, and positive parenting. They’re also in the news: Chastity Lord just took the helm as the program’s first African American president and CEO. “Because of its successful model, Jeremiah is in a unique position to frame a national conversation about the investments required to disrupt cycles of generational poverty while simultaneously illuminating what systems and structures lead to it,” she said in a press release. jeremiahprogram.org

Power Girls Camp

What’s better than a Girl Scout with cookies? A Girl Scout with a hammer, of course. Girl Scouts River Valleys partners with Minneapolis’s Dunwoody College of Technology to give girls skills to add to their tool belt. Power Girls Camp is a 6-day overnight camp where Juniors, Cadettes, Seniors, and Ambassadors build a tiny house structure with the help and supervision of women from Dunwoody. Girls learn welding and construction as well as developing outdoor and survival skills at Camp Lakamaga in Marine on St. Croix. This year’s focus was on finishing the interior of last year’s two tiny home structures and building the exterior of two new ones. The finished tiny houses are auctioned to raise scholarship funds for girls to participate in Girl Scout programming. girlscoutsrv.org