On Madison’s south side today, Mount Zion Church was the host as the Madison Metropolitan Chapter of The Links, Incorporated sponsored its 6th annual “Yes, I Can” Conference for Middle School Girls to promote healthy lifestyles options with particular emphasis on improving young women’s health and wellness, academic achievement, financial literary and self-esteem.
“I’ll be perfectly honest with you … we all worked really hard to put this together and it’s definitely a group organization activity,” says Viola Miller, chairperson for the event and also associate minister at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. “The purpose of this conference is to build self-esteem and leadership skills to empower these girls as young black women. It’s for them to also be able to see young professional black women who are doing things in this community and for them to interact and ask questions.”
Most of the young women facilitating workshops for the girls were graduate students at the UW. The keynote address, titled “Quick Tips and Advice on How to be Cool in School,” was actually delivered by 2012 Links Scholar Tierra Smith, who is currently a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It was funny because when [Tierra] finished talking, the first question she was asked by the girls was, ‘What’s it like being in college?’” Miller laughs. “I thought this was awesome and important. When I introduced all of our speakers I noted that they were in college and talked about what degrees they were working towards. The students were probably excited about the women being in college that more than anything …. well, except maybe their gift bags.”
Founded in 1946, The Links, Incorporated 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 over 30 years. Since its inception in 1985, The Links has awarded more than $110,000 in scholarships to local students.
At the conference, the approximately 86 girls in attendance from 12 middle schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District were welcomed by Links’ President Julia Holman. Past years saw only 8th-graders participate in the “Yes, I Can!” conference. This year, it was only 6th-graders.
Workshop topics at the “Yes, I Can” conference included “Your Actions Speak Louder than Your Words,” “Academic Success in Middle School and Beyond,” “Self-Esteem/Self-Image,” and “Developing Leadership Skills.”
There were no men around at the event, except for an occasional journalist, so women and girls were really able to develop a sisterhood throughout the day.
“It’s a place where young women can be open and candid and feel safe talking about whatever they want to talk about,” Miller says. “It’s also a place where young women can get serious about thinking about their post-high school careers. We have professional women who can not only tell them about their experiences, but about the obstacles they will face. The undertone of this whole event is girl power. We can do it.”
The Links want to keep the momentum of the “Yes, I Can” Conference going well beyond one day.
“Our goal is to establish a mentoring program with the girls,” Miller says. “This year’s conference we are working with 6th graders so we hope to keep working with them as they progress through middle school. We feel like an ongoing mentoring program will instill in them the power to let them know that they can do whatever they set out to do. Yes, I can!”
