Girls to Women, Women to Girls is now Keys to High School Success
The Women’s Resource Center recognizes that a good education is the best way to avoid a life of poverty. One of the most critical times in a young woman’s educational career is her passage from middle school to high school, when she leaves her childhood and enters her teenage years. The Women’s Resource Center helps eighth-grade girls prepare for their passage into young adulthood with the “Girls to Women, Women to Girls” Conference held each spring. About 250 girls from La Plata County learn from peers and adult women how to negotiate life’s trials and tribulations that may interfere with their education.
In 2015, Durango School District 9R officially adopted the program as part of the curriculum under the new moniker, “Keys to High School Success.” The program now incorporates a separate conference for 8th grade boys on the same day as the girl’s conference. This year’s conferences will be held at Fort Lewis College on May 5th.
Get Your Girl Power Conference
The Women’s Resource Center offered the 4th annual “Get Your Girl Power” Conference for fifth-grade girls on Friday, April 8th at Bayfield Elementary. This conference is to encourage more young girls to embrace their intelligence, strength and body image.
“Get Your Girl Power” is modeled after WRC’s successful “Girls to Women, Women to Girls” program established in 1999 with a grant from the Women’s Foundation of Colorado. The Center is offering a one day conference on May 7th, that connect eighth-grade girls with high-school girls, college and adult women to prepare eighth-graders for the transition to and challenges of high school. This year the workshop is in Durango at Fort Lewis College. The conferences address topics such as:
- Media literacy
- Personal safety
- Career and life choices
- Interpersonal relationships
- And bullying intervention techniques