Daily Archives: August 2, 2017

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MICHIGAN -- The Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health (MOASH) has been awarded a two-year grant from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) for their project Michigan Youth (MY) Girls Say.

This project offers holistic programming to K-12 self-identified girls in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to cultivate personal advocacy and resilience.

Gender based discrimination is pervasive in STEM academia and workforce. Without a foundation of personal empowerment, girls will abandon the STEM field. Taryn Gal, Managing Director at MOASH said STEM programming prepares students for success in many areas, but it does not prepare girls for a future in a field that is predominantly male. Research shows that it is not lack of interest, relevant education, or ability that accounts for a low percentage of women in STEM professions, but an adverse learning and working culture of sexual harassment, assault, and discrimination that girls are not prepared to navigate and challenge.

Participants in MY Girls Say will learn concrete skills, understand their rights, and recognize the strength in their whole selves to demand and achieve equitable treatment in a male-dominated STEM field.

Awarded early last month through the Community Action Grant from AAUW, MOASH has already begun its work connecting with committed project partners including AAUW of Michigan, Females Excelling More in Math Engineering and the Sciences (FEMMES), Phi Sigma Rho, Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan, Stop Sexual Assault in Schools, and a certified mindfulness and yoga instructor.

On July 16, MOASH coordinated its first MY Girls Say workshop about combating gender expectations and understanding TItle IX with an Ann Arbor Daisy Girl Scouts troop of girls 6-9 years old.

Throughout the next two years, MOASH will implement workshops on Title IX, spearhead self-advocacy training, and coordinate gender-embodiment yoga sessions.

Project partners will help ensure the development and widespread dispersal of effective materials to girls across Ann Arbor and other areas in Southeast Michigan. Components of MY Girls Say are youth-informed and/or youth-led.

Prior to MOASHs MY Girls Say program, there was no holistic approach to empowering girls in STEM to challenge future gender discrimination and few opportunities for girls in Michigan to receive Title IX education.

MY Girls Say has the potential to transform the way girls view their potential, their education, as well as their community. Those who wish to follow MOASHs progress on this project are directed to sign up for the MOASH e-newsletter and to like MOASHs Facebook page to stay informed.

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Grant to help support girls in STEM - UPMatters.com

Summer Camp is certainly something most everyone can relate to.

Close your eyes and go back to those days when you learned to make homemade ice cream, tie rope knots, and work together as a team. The Disability Action Centers Summer Camp is not much different from camps that we remember.

We start with those sometimes awkward ice breaker games, make crafts and personal mementos, and partake in lots of eating, lots and lots of eating! DACs Camp CAN-DO, while much like camps we remember and hold dear, is also different in many ways.

The Disability Action Center Camp CAN-DO is about learning, growing, exploring and proving that our campers CAN-DO Anything. We want to challenge campers to do new things, proving both to themselves and others that they are full of way more ability than they are disability. Camp CAN-DO is not only open to individuals with special needs, but also their siblings, family members and non-disabled peers. It is truly an inclusive camp, where everyone, regardless of age or ability level, feels at home, welcomed and valued. Camp CAN-DO strives to provide an atmosphere of inclusion, personal empowerment, mentoring opportunities, creative expression, as well as provide innovative opportunities for campers and their families.

The DACs Camp CAN-DO will be held July 24-28, at the Disability Action Center and include travel to other accessible locations as part of the camp theme The DAC is Going Places. Much emphasis for this years camp will be the use of assistive technology in recreation, outdoor activity and travel. The week-long camp will focus on acclimating campers to new recreational activities and expanding their horizons through unique travel experiences, especially those experiences previously deemed as unattainable. Field trips are planned throughout Marion County to learn about our local history and points of interest, including the Marion County Historical Society, Pufferbellys Ice Cream Station, WV Folklife Center and the Homestead Farm Center. Other travel-related activities include cooking around the world, creating a personal passport, and mapping out future travel goals!

Camp CAN-DO is open to individuals age 8 and up, which is a departure from the primarily adult-driven programs that the DAC offers during the school year. The camp may be a child or familys first experience with the DAC and lays the ground work for their orientation to the DAC and the wide range of programs that are offered and will be much needed once the child is out of school.

Camp CAN-DO is held each week day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is open to individuals of all ages with physical and intellectual challenges. Siblings, family members and community supporters also play an important role in the success and integration of the camps activities. For more information about Camp CAN-DO and other DAC programs, you can visit http://www.disabilityactioncenter.com or call the center at 304-366-3213.

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DAC camp 'Can-Do' all about learning, growing, exploring - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)

When it comes to empowerment, everyone jumps straight to Dove. Few brands get remotely close to the impact that Doves "Real Beauty" campaign has had on culture, which fundamentally changed the way we view beauty and liberated women to feel comfortable in their own skin, stretch marks and all. It was such an important shift in our culture, acting as catalyst for a wave of female empowerment campaigns.

As I reflected on the well-deserved praise for the campaign, it got me wondering is liberation the same as empowerment? Is it enough to make someone "feel good" about themself if the goal is to motivate them to do something to improve their life? Or does it just make them settle? And does it make sense for all the other "female empowerment" brands to adopt the same strategy as Dove? Or are they just noise?

People often think of self-esteem and self-efficacy as the same sort of thing, but there is a big difference, particularly in terms of how empowered they leave someone feeling. Self-esteem reflects a persons subjective evaluation of their worth. Self-efficacy refers to the personal belief about ones ability to perform specific tasks or achieve specific outcomes. Put another way, self-esteem is belief about who you are, which can be somewhat fixed, whereas self-efficacy is a belief about what youre capable of.

Dove falls into the self-esteem camp, which was an extremely effective strategy, considering the beauty industrys history of tearing a womans confidence down and fueling the inner critic that lives within us. For decades, women were depicted by unrealistic images, which were devastating to the self-esteem of women everywhere. It was liberating and empowering when Dove turned this on its head and made the beauty industry the enemy. However, self-esteem is not always an effective strategy.

Carol Dweck, the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, is famous for her research on mindset. Dweck showed that person-praise, such as "youre so smart, talented, gifted, brilliant, beautiful," etc., while it helps someone feel good about themselves, leads to what she coined a Fixed Mindset. Someone with a Fixed Mindset is likely to avoid challenges, give up easily, see effort as fruitless or, worse, ignore negative feedback, be threatened by the success of others and as a result fail to reach their potential. This is not empowering.

Conversely, process-praise, which emphasizes the process someone went through to achieve an outcome, cultivates a Growth Mindset and builds self-efficacy, as it enables the person to learn and replicate their behavior. Someone with a Growth Mindset embraces challenges, persists in the face of setbacks, sees effort as a path to mastery, learns from criticism, finds lessons and inspiration from the success of others and as a result can reach ever-higher levels of achievement. This is real empowerment.

Michael Jordan is probably one of the best examples of Growth Mindset individuals on earth. He was cut from his high-school basketball team and saw it as a challenge to work harder and give them no choice but to put him on the team. He was known to be the first to arrive at training and the last to leave. Over the years, Nikes Air Jordan brand has more closely reflected the Growth Mindset of its namesake.

Initially, the advertising was like that of any other superstar brand. Its actually quite entertaining to watch the old advertising reel, featuring Jordan achieving the impossible. Flying through the air like some kind of superhuman, dunking on a 20-foot-high ring. He makes it look easy. Its pure, natural talent. The advertising is praising the person, Michael Jordan. Inspiring, but not that empowering for anyone hoping to follow in his footsteps.

Contrast this a recent campaign. The monologue from Jordan sums it up. "Ive missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. Ive lost almost 300 games. 26 times Ive been trusted to take the game-winning shotand missed. Ive failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

The later campaign praised the journey that led to his success, celebrating his failures as opportunities to learn and grow. It reinforced that anything was possible through hard work, and the importance of perseverance. It left aspiring basketball players feeling ready for the challenge. The brand went from sponsoring sporting legends to creating sporting legends.

Brands have a unique ability to shape the mindsets of the people they are created for. We need to use that power to make sure were doing more than just making people feel good about themselves. Lets help them believe in themselves. This is real empowerment.

Alison Earl is the Director of Strategy for Burns Group.

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Are campaigns like 'Real Beauty' real empowerment? - Campaign US

A DABAWENYA authors for the first time a self-empowerment book.

Joan Mae Soco-Bantayan, 33, who is a nurturer at Tuburan Institute and 2003 Mutya ng Dabaw, wrote the book Remember Who You Really Are: 12 questions to help you how. The book launch was held last Friday, July 21, at the Abreeza Mall Activity Center.

I have been longing to write a book that will help empower our fellow men and finally, Ive done it, Soco-Bantayan says that even when she longed to write a book, she did not plan to do it this year.

Interestingly, Lady Bam Petilos, a TV and personality and a friend whom I met in Ike Pono seminar, came up to me last January and told me that its time for me to write a book, she says. Lady Bam also told me that the idea to write a book is divinely guided. Inwardly, I felt that too and I knew I had to honor that.

The book, according to Soco-Bantayan, is a summation of the lessons she learned from seminars like Ike Pono facilitated by Bruce Conching and Mission Courage Workshop facilitated by Alternative Nobel Prize awardee Nicanor Perlas. It also discusses the personal questions that we can use as a compass so that we are able to cope with our lives better, Soco-Bantayan adds. Because of the busy-ness that weighs in our lives, we have forgotten to look deeper into ourselves and find that deep inside lies the fulfillment.

Soco-Bantayan adds that Remember Who You Really Are not only talks about personal desires that one can achieve, I am emphasizing the sense of duty along with gratitude to in the book. This is because we have to change our inner perspective first before we can help in the world.

During the book launch, various guests were treated to angel message oracle card reading and gave angel card readings and guidance to guests for free.

This book would not have been possible without the help of the angels, she shares.

The book comes with an angel message bookmarker created by Angeologist Princess Buendia.

Feel Free to email stephaniesunstar@yahoo.com for comments and suggestions. Add or visit FB CelebdomSunstar for previous Celebdom articles.

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Dabawenya writes a self-empowerment book | SunStar - Sun.Star