At Shaker Junior High School, a group of girls have spent the school year turning into little leaders, together.
“We tried to work on our confidence and our teamwork and working well together,” said Remaz Omer, an 8th-grader.
Omer is a member of Girls Take Charge, a program in collaboration with Shaker High School that helps empower girls through frank discussions and group bonding activities.
“I got involved with Girls Take Charge because I wanted to build on my leadership skills and become a stronger role model in the community and in my school,” said Omer.
What ups the girl power factor is that high school girls create all the content, from the topics to the way they’re tackled. This year, the girls explored overcoming obstacles, being a role model, leadership, communication, public speaking, body image and boys and relationships.
“We just do a lot of the legwork and facilitating of some things but the high school girls develop the topics and come up with their lesson plans for each week,” said Stacey Angell, a counselor and co-advisor of the group.
Tulsi Patel, also in eighth grade, joined to become a better role model, too. She said the Girls Take Charge approach worked.
“What we did was really useful because they tried to get everyone involved with it so it was good and I think everyone got to learn,” said Patel.
Each session started with ice breaker games to knock down walls and foster communication.
“We had one … where we would tie one of our legs together and try to jump over hoops with them to really emphasize teamwork and communication,” said Patel. “Those are two really important skills you need.”
Angell said she saw the junior high girls grow throughout the year, individually and as a group.
“I think they came away with an understanding that they’re not alone in some of the things that they struggle with and they came away with a more positive outlook because they’re being able to talk about the problems they’re all going through,” said Angell.
Getting advice coming from high school girls who represent what they’ll eventually become made a big difference in the junior high schoolers opening up, said Angell.
“Having those high school role models tell them they went through the same thing and they survived I think is really strong for them,” said Angell.
Omer said her comfort level allowed her to get more out of the program.
“I felt pretty comfortable in the group since we all knew each other and I think it came to me naturally because we’re so comfortable with each other and got along together,” said Omer. “I have a little bit of trouble with confidence but … it kind of built on to our confidence and gave us skills to be better role models in our community.”
The girls recently spent an afternoon with well-known leaders from the community for a panel discussion and group work. Benita Zahn from WNYT, Paula Mahan, Town of Colonie supervisor, Dr. Fatemah Shadi, a scientist and Dr. Shannon O’Neill, director of women’s studies at Siena College were among the visitors.
“They talked about public speaking and how it was a big impact on their community,” said Omer.
Patel said hearing women they all know and look up to talk about their own struggles and offer advice was eye-opening.
“They talked about how you may not be certain with what you may do in life in the future but if you work hard … you’ll be able to do it,” said Patel. “It was really helpful because these people we all look up to … and it was really cool seeing someone there talking to you one-on-one about their life experience.”
Omer and Patel said they’d recommend other girls join Girls Take Charge.
“It really helps you out. I think it made a really big impact on me confidence-wise … and I feel like if I really put forward my best effort I can really make a change in my community,” said Omer.
Angell said the program also helps ease the transition from middle school to high school.
“For our 8th-graders, it’s nice for them to feel connections to the high school so next year there’s girls in the hallway they’ve gotten to know, so it makes the transition to high school safer and more secure for those kids,” said Angell.
It also made an impact on the older girls running the group.
“I think in any position when you are teaching somebody else something you get a heightened sense of awareness and I think it was good for (the high school girls) to work with those junior high girls and remember those obstacles they’ve faced and overcome,” said Angell.
