Signal as much as keep related
Get the highest tales of the day across the DMV.
Earlier this week, London Beckwith stumbled upon an occasion at Busboys & Poets Anacostia that she stated compelled her to suppose deeply concerning the previous few years of her life and what different District youth encounter whereas coming of age.
For a couple of hours on Monday, London listened to audio system of assorted generations discover constructive self-image, wholesome dwelling and sound decision-making, amongst different matters. Because the oldest amongst greater than a dozen contributors, London stated she totally embraced this system, titled the “Southeast D.C. Ladies Empowerment Workshop.”
Extra importantly, London advised The Informer that she empathized along with her youthful friends who’ve but to know the gravity of the socioemotional points they’re experiencing and the way their setting has triggered them.
“It’s exhausting for some individuals to apply self-love and self-care as a result of their households don’t uplift them,” stated London, a 17-year-old highschool senior with aspirations of changing into a cosmetologist and esthetician.
“There are quite a lot of ladies who don’t have self-respect [so] this [event] helps some younger women to need to have it. They could have seen how [badly] their mothers and grandmas have been handled and suppose it’s OK.”
London counted amongst 15 younger girls between the ages of 13 and 18 who attended the Southeast D.C. Ladies Empowerment Workshop Aug. 14-18 within the Marion Barry Room of Busboys & Poets in Anacostia.
Faenita Dilworth, a coach and coach who lives in Anacostia, coordinated this system with the help of Ezekiel Kenebrew, a digital advertising and enterprise administration marketing consultant. For a number of aspects of this system, Dilworth used a e-book and curriculum developed by Janice Ferebee, a D.C. resident and girls and ladies’ empowerment skilled.
With the globally acknowledged Sankofa chook overlooking them, the contributors of the Southeast D.C. Ladies Empowerment Workshop spent their first day reciting constructive affirmations and creating a woman code that dictated how they might interact one another.
In addition they accomplished a DISC persona evaluation and realized about what Dilworth described as requirements of excellence, together with psychological and bodily health, media literacy, wholesome relationships and communication, and private styling and grooming.
Towards the tip of the week, the contributors visited Howard College, Georgetown College and George Washington College.
Presenters included group elder Sarah Holley, wellness coach Jackie Brown, designer Saba Tshibaka of Rendered, Inc. and Kenebrew. Busboys & Poets and Anacostia Enterprise Enchancment District allowed the usage of the area for the undertaking. Individuals additionally acquired a philodendron plant from Grounded, a plant store and cafe that may quickly open on Good Hope Highway in Southeast.
Since Might, Dilworth and Kenebrew carried out a guerilla advertising marketing campaign, canvassing neighborhoods in Southeast and interesting colleges, church buildings, recreation facilities and group organizations to determine contact with college students and their households.
With a digital aspect of the Southeast D.C. Ladies Empowerment Workshop to quickly observe, Dilworth stated that she stays adamant that the 15 contributors, and others who’re within the workshop, discover their girlhood for much longer than what society has allowed Black feminine youths.
“I intentionally known as it a ladies empowerment workshop,” Dilworth stated. “We discovered that there have been wants past what we may supply in a week-long workshop. It’s about self-awareness so these ladies could make good choices. We need to give them the instruments wanted.”
Research lately have discovered that Black ladies face adultification bias, by which they’re perceived as extra adult-like and fewer harmless than their white counterparts. In keeping with a 2019 Georgetown Regulation research, this phenomenon typically leads adults to deal with Black ladies in developmentally applicable methods and coerce them into being extra passive.
Racism, sexism and poverty have additionally been discovered to be contributing components.
That’s why Kennebrew stated a lot of his work with the Southeast D.C. Ladies Empowerment Workshop includes pushing contributors to think about a life past their present circumstances. He has recounted doing that on a number of events, typically with constructive outcomes.
“Tragedies are so shut in proximity, that younger individuals lose hope,” Kennebrew advised The Informer. “My workshop encourages them to plant the seed of being the change they need to see to allow them to perceive the method of being a diamond going via refinement. They need to enable that stress to transmute them to their fullest potential.”