“What I love most about this event is the exposure that the young girls get to people who look like them who are in different roles and different positions in our community,” says Corinda Rainey-Moore, co-chair of the annual “Yes, I Can” Middle School Girls Conference. “And they also get to know that we are here for them and that we care. That’s my joy. Seeing this day come together and all of the energy from these girls here today. When kids get to know and see people who look like them, they know that they can also achieve.”
Middle school girls came together from throughout the Madison area as the Madison Metropolitan Chapter of The Links, Incorporated hosted its “Yes, I Can! Yes, I Will!” Conference for Middle School Girls to promote healthy lifestyles options at the Promega Corporation in Fitchburg on March 20.
“The vibe has been great here today. I think the girls are enthusiastic about it. Many of them haven’t come together as a larger group like this before,” Rainey-Moore tells Madison365. “They get to be in a great learning environment. Being around all these other girls helps them connect the dots that they aren’t the only ones going through what they are currently going through in life.”
The host of the event was The Links, Incorporated, founded in 1946, it is one of the oldest and largest of predominately African-American, not-for-profit, service organizations in the nation with a membership of more than 12,000 professional women in 274 chapters located in 42 states. The Madison Metropolitan Chapter of The Links, Incorporated has been serving the Madison community and supporting Madison’s African-American students for 32 years. Since its inception in 1985, The Links has awarded more than $110,000 in scholarships to local students.
Julia Holman, president of the Madison Metropolitan Chapter of The Links, Inc., gave the welcome at the event that featured small group sessions with themes like “Anti-Bullying: Be An Upstander,” “Discovering Your Hidden Potential – Film Clips/Hidden Figures” “Conflict Resolution: Mind, Spirit, and Body,” and “Academic Achievement in Middle School and Beyond.” Some of the girls at the event got to serve on panels and talk about their own experiences.
Dr. Jasmine Zapata, a pediatrician at UW Health, delivered the keynote in the morning titled “Beyond Beautiful” that saw the young women spend part of the time watching the documentary “The Souls of Black Girls,” an award-winning provocative news documentary that raises the question of whether or not women of color may be suffering from a self-image disorder as a result of trying to attain the standards of beauty that are celebrated in media images.
“This documentary talked about how music, the media, and different magazines and TV shows and the image of beauty that they portray and the affect that it has on women of color,” Zapata tells Madison365.
There was a big group discussion with the girls after the movie. “That was a powerful discussion. In some ways, it really saddened me to hear the young girls talk about the messages that they are getting and the pressures that they are under because of all the things that are going on in society,” Dr. Zapata says. “Some of them talked about all the messages they are getting from the media about beauty and how they feel pressure to be promiscuous. They feel pressure wishing their skin was lighter, they feel pressure to be extremely skinny.”
But it’s not only the media that has contributed to the problem. Zapata and the girls also talked about the pressure that middle school girls put on each other every single day through bullying and gossiping.
“When I asked them how many of them feel torn down or ridiculed by even their own peers or women of color … almost everybody raised their hands,” Zapata says. “So we moved the discussion to ways that we as young black women can do things to combat these problems. What are immediate things that we in this room can do? And it was so amazing to hear their comments – even at this young age – and how they said they could come together by supporting each other and giving each other compliments.”
Dr. Zapata says that there have been many studies done on middle schoolers looking at their self-esteem and how it affects young women in their lives. “Basically, when they followed them over time, even through high school, the ones who had lower self-esteem ratings are two/three times more likely to drop out of school, or have teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, risky sexual behavior. It was all related to their self-esteem ratings while they were in middle school. So this is such an important issue.”
Zapata adds that all young girls face these challenges, but especially young black women.
Rainey-Moore says that the “Yes, I Can! Yes, I Will!” Conference is one of her favorite parts about being in The Links.
“Working with young girls and young women are really one of my passions,” says Rainey-Moore, who mentions that in the future one of her own personal passions is to get an academy going. “I want to build girls leadership and start in middle school. For me, this is some of the work that I am already passionate about. So, I really feel strongly about this. Our girls often don’t get told that they are leaders and that they can be leaders. So, this is so very important.”
“They can achieve whatever they want,” she adds,” and if they put their minds to it, they will.”
Dr. Zapata says that it is vitally important for her to be involved in a day like this for young girls.
“In many ways, I feel like the work that I do here is even more important and more critical than when I’m actually within the hospital clinic walls,” she says. “This is a great way that we can reach them even before they start getting that alcohol addiction, using drugs, trying to commit suicide or [become] extremely depressed. It’s extremely important and I’m so grateful and honored to be here today. Hats off to The Links for once again hosting this important conference.
