Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Good morning, and welcome to what'sgoing on? A show about making a
difference in our lives and our communities. I'm Lorraine ballad Moral. If you
drive down Kelly Drive by Falls Bridge, you might want to take a detour
into East Falls to tell us moreabout this community. I'll be speaking with
Michelle Feldman, director of East FallsDevelopment Corps. First, the Philadelphia Department
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of Public Health estimates approximately eighty twohundred people in our city are candidates for
PREP, which means they're high riskfor HIV. But in twenty nineteen,
only thirty seven percent of high riskindividuals took PREP. And we're going to
be talking about that, what people'shesitations are, and where we are when
we're talking about HIV and AIDS witha couple of folks. I'm so excited
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to speak to Javonte Williams. He'sPrevention program Manager for the Division of HIV
Health for the Philadelphia Department of PublicHealth. And Shook Daniels is a Delaware
born, Philadelphia based singer, songwriter, storyteller and producer who's using her tools
and her talents to talk not onlyabout the things that matter to us,
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but also to reach out to thecommunity to get the word out on PREP
and other things, and so thankyou both for joining us here today.
I'm going to start with you,Javonte, because you can give us some
stats. First of all, let'stalk about PREP. What is PREP?
For those who don't know, PREPis pre exposure propylexis, and it's a
group of medications that someone can accessto prevent HIV. We have a number
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of types of PREP, so wehave PREP by mouth, which are usually
tablets. We also have injectables whichpeople can go to their doctor or nurse
practitioner and get every other month tokeep themselves healthy and HIV negative. So,
Daniels, you are stepping up toget the word out about PREP.
Tell us why is that something thatmeans something to you? Why is it
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important for you to get the messageout? Well, I feel like when
they reached out to me to seeif I'd be interested in helping, I
was really so excited to jump atthe opportunity. I grew up in a
single family, you know, threechildren, household, and my mom.
I don't think I've ever seen mymother go to the doctor or really have
the time to research some of theopportunities that were out there. For her
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and having you know, my jobis getting attention. So if I can
use that platform to get the wordout about something that could save a lot
of lives, you know, I'mall here for it, right and Javante.
When we talk about PREP, we'retalking about prevention, prevention of the
spread of HIV and that has beena huge development and advance in our effort
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to get to zero right, zeroinfections, zero deaths, and of course
zero stigma. But when we talkabout PREP, not everybody is number one
aware of it, and there aresome people who might be reluctant to get
engaged using PREP. What are someof the barriers that are present for people
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in terms of preventing them from usingPREP? Well, I would say the
main barrier is people not understanding thatHIV is still among us. It's still
a relevant issue. I think folkshave allowed it to fall to the background
and not really focus on, youknow, the health of either people living
with HIV or their own health ifthey're HIV negative. And that's a substantial
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barrier because if someone doesn't understand thatone I'm at risk for HIV or two
I know someone living with HIV,then they may not feel empowered to take
initiative and reach out to the resourcesthat we have available. And I think
the second thing is just understanding whereto get it and also that it's free.
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Right. A lot of people thinkthat the medications will cost an arm
and a leg, But in mostcases, your insurance will cover PREP,
or you can access services for free, and you don't have to meet some
type of income standard. If youwant PREP, you can get PREP.
Also, a lot of misconceptions aboutwho PREP is for. I mean,
people will probably automatically assume it's justfor gay men, but that's not always
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the case, right or in fact, it's a much more expansive umbrella when
we talk about PREP. Yes,it affects people of every walk, every
walk of life. And I thinkthat the more that we let people know
that and bring it back to theforefront, the more they're going to be
open to learning about it. Sometimeswe just don't know until we know,
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So we just got to keep gettingthat word out, right, Levante,
let's talk about the state of HIVright now in Philadelphia. You mentioned you
implied, and I think this istrue that after the eighties and after a
lot of the new medications and developments, that it comes to treating HIV.
The urgency I think is kind ofsettled back. People don't think it's like
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an issue anymore. But the factis it is an issue, and as
mentioned, it affects all of us. It's not a gay disease. It's
an infection that anyone can get,right, Yeah, And I think when
we look at the lens of mostimmediate harm, right, if someone's like,
well, I don't inject drugs orI'm not engaging in quote unquote risky
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sexual behavior, so this doesn't impactme. But let's say you're a white
woman happily married in the suburbs,right, you don't realize the amount and
the cost associated with caring for peoplewith HIV. It's a tremendous expenditure across
this country, not just in Philadelphia, and so in many ways you are
being impacted by a preventable disease.And the way that we combat that is
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not to you know, splice orcut funding for programs that are important,
but to raise awareness. And themore that we get people access to the
services they need, the less andless the spread of HIV will impact all
of us. And I think thatthat's been the driving force behind our end
an HIV epidemic plan. People canwell go onto hiv Philly dot org and
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find the plan where the city hasa plan in the HIV epidemic. Always
ask people, you know, ifCOVID existed at the levels it did in
twenty twenty, right where we werelocked down and we all were terrified and
filled with anxiety for forty years orlonger, right, that would be mass
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hysteria. Well, the HIV AIDSpandemic has existed for that long, and
unfortunately we've been a victim of ourown success in terms of the advancement and
medications, because we don't see peopledying anymore, right, Like, if
they have complications related to HIV orAIDS, they die in the comfort of
their own home or in a hospital. It's not public like it was,
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but the dusts are still very muchthere if people don't get access to medications
and don't protect themselves with the waysthat we have available to us now,
with tools like PREP. Yeah,so when it comes to preventing HIV,
it's like it's with in our graspto end this epidemic. Right, if
you get people on PREP, orif you get people who are HIV positive
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to be fully medicated and get theirviral load down to zero. Then that
stops the spread, right, youstop it at the source. Right.
So it's like it's within our graspto end this epidemic. Yeah, it's
within our grasp. But once again, it's just about letting people know.
I think that it's such a beautifulthing that the Department of Health that the
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Philadelphia is doing is by making itfree, making it discreete. It gets
delivered to your door, which,you know, because there still is that
stigma, whether it's you know,is big in the media or you know,
big of a story in the mediaor not, people are still cautious
about letting people know, you know, the kind of help that they're trying
to get. So the fact thatit's free, it's discreete and anybody with
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a Philadelphia address can get it,I think it's just beautiful. It's definitely
a step in in a wonderful direction. Yeah, Levante, can you repeat
for everybody? Where people can findout more about prep suor Philly Keep on
Loving dot com. It's our sexualwellness website and there's prep information. There's
also access to our teleprep program.There's also condoms, lube, and other
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sexual wellness products people can request andlearn more about protecting their health. Yeah,
and Sug if people want to knowmore about you and all the things
that you do because you are asinger, songwriter, Philadelphia based, delawareborn
and producer. You've been doing stuffout in the community. But how do
we find out more about your wonderfulwork that you do. You can find
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all my socials, all my andkeep up to date with me at Shug
Daniels dot com. That's sug spelledSug Daniels, D A N I E.
L S and Levante. I'm goingto give you the last word.
I don't know how old you are. In the eighties when I first started
covering HIV and AIDS, people died. You got HIV and you were dead
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in two years or less. Andat that time we never, in our
wildest dreams, those of us whoare covering it, those are us who
are actively engaged in getting the wordout that we would ever get to this
point where the light at the endof the tunnel is there. It's a
little pinpoint still, but we're stillit's still within the realm now of possibility
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that we could get to zero infections, zero deaths, and hopefully zero stigma.
What are your thoughts on that.I don't again, you look so
young that I don't even know ifthat. I am so happy you think
that because my birthday is tomorrow andI turned thirty nine. It is one
of those things where there's two worldsthat we live in. Right. We
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can either live in twenty twenty three, where people have access to medications that
will either prevent HIV or reduce theviral load, that you know they live
a healthy life and you wouldn't beable to even identify them with our best
science as having HIV. Right,and we can follow the lead of New
York and San Francisco, which havemade great strides in improving the epidemic and
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nearly ending it in those cities.Or it can be nineteen eighty four right
where there's a political battle overfunding andpeople don't have access to the resources and
the medications that they need, andthey continue to become infected with HIV and
die. We have the power tomake that choice, and I would like
for our city to choose to livein twenty twenty three where everyone has equitable
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access to the resources they need.To live a healthy in whole life.
I love that. I love thatand let's keep that vision present and again,
Levante, if people want more information, what's the website again, Billy,
keep on loving dot com. I'dlike to thank you both for joining
us here today and spreading the wordabout PREP and also about the access to
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all sorts of resources to event HIVinfection. Javonte Williams, Prevention Program Manager,
Division of HIV Health for the PhiladelphiaDepartment of Public Health, and the
fabulous Sir Daniels, Delaware born,Philadelphia based singer, songwriter, storyteller,
producer and an advocate working to getthe word out about PREP. Thank you
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all for joining us today. Everyday almost I drive up Ridge Avenue and
over the many years, I've seensuch a transformation along Ridge Avenue, in
particular in that stretch known as EastFalls. So we're going to do a
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little deep dive into that neighborhood totalk about what's been happening with it,
what are some of the new developmentsoccurring, and what people need to know
about East Falls to tell us allabout it. Michelle Feldman, she's director
of East Falls Development Corporation and sowell, first of all welcome and it's
great to see you. We hada connection previously when you were executive director
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of Philadelphia More Beautiful and now youare the director of East Falls Development Corporation.
So let's begin by talking about whatis East Falls? Where's it located.
Well, first of all, thankyou so much for having me.
It's great to see you as always, and I truly appreciate all you do
to help spread the word about allof the good, positive things going on
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in the city. So East Fallsis this really special neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia.
So we have Roxboro, MANIONNK inGermantown, I'm on area Chestnut Hill
all by us, but East Fallshas its own sort of special in my
opinion, it's its own special flavorwhich makes it a really great place to
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live, work, play. Asthey say, we're right by the Scoogle
River, which is amazing, sowe have a lot of wonderful parkland and
recreation nearby. But what we doat the East Falls Development Corporation is work
with try to support, promote andrecruit new small businesses to the area.
So we're laser focus on hyper localeconomic development in the neighborhood. Yeah,
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you know, as I mentioned,I drive up Reach Avenue all the time
and have seen tremendous change, andespecially lately it seems as though it's accelerated
with more new businesses coming in forpeople to take advantage of. Tell us
a little bit more about who's comingin. What's the nature of the kinds
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of businesses that are locating in EastFalls. Yeah, so I think it's
a really exciting time throughout the city, of course, but also in East
Falls we have a number of newcommercial spaces that will be opening up in
the next year, so stay tunedfor some additional new businesses that will be
moving in. You know, Idon't think I can make any announcements on
that quite yet, but there aresome exciting developments in the works there.
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But we also have some wonderful businessesthat have been in East Falls for for
many many years, from fitness andyoga we were just talking about before we
started to record all the way throughexperiences, things like East Falls glass Works,
the rock Gym so you can gorock climbing and East Falls and we
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just discovered a wonderful business that actuallydoes hula hoop lessons, circus arts,
so you know, super fun.And then we also have some great bars
and restaurants. So Billy Murphy's IrishSaloon is a neighborhood staple and stalwart.
There's gonna be a new Tacorea thathe's opening up nearby on Midville Avenue.
So folks are really excited about aboutthe new Tacorea in Riva, which is
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a wonderful pizza place right on theriver. Amazing the bus. So lots
of lots of opportunity to do recreatingon the river and then go grab something
to eat or hula hooping or rockclimbing and then go grab something to eat.
Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. It's in a very unique and
interesting location because it is so adjacentto the Schoogol River and let's talk about
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the School River and East Falls.Tell us what's happening with that. Yeah,
So it is both I think theneighborhood's greatest asset and in some ways
a challenge with flooding. Right yea. So about two years ago now,
our organization, along with some amazingneighborhood partners, was a true true neighborhood
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effort, opened up a new boatlaunch called the East Falls River, landing
on the forty four hundred block ofKelly Drive, So it's an access point
straight into the river for non motorizedboating, fishing, paddling, recreation of
all kinds. So William Penn helpedwith that. PA fish and boat and
of course parks and recreation at thecity level all helped make that project what
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it is. So we see thatas a great way for folks to come
come to East Falls, see itas a destination, come get out on
the river, explore, enjoy thenatural the natural beauty of the city and
of East Falls. At this sametime, we know that flooding, I
mean especially even over the last coupleof weeks where yeah, I mean parts
of Kelli Drive were underwater exactly exactly. And then of course two years ago
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we had Hurricane Ida, where itwas really a tough tough time and not
just for East Falls of course,from Manioc and other parts of the city
as well. Yeah, so weare actually proudly working with the Maniac Development
Corporation and the city. Many cityagencies are helping us out with us as
well on a flood mitigation and preparationstudy. We expect that that will be
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wrapped up by summer of this year, and then we'll be able to work
with our city partners, our stateand federal partners, as well as the
Maniac Development Corporation on hopefully some strategiesto help mitigate some of the damage that
occurs during these flooding events, whichwe know are unfortunately just going to be
and become more often and more violentglobal warm Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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yeah, yeah, No, I'venoticed that because I used to live in
Many and certainly living in Manny andGuy drove up Kelly Drive a lot as
well, and it seems pretty muchinevitable that it gets flooded several times a
year, but certainly now more thanever, we've been getting a whole lot
of rain, and that becomes verydisruptive. How far during a Hurricane Ida?
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Did the water Did it get upto Ridge Avenue? It? Did
it? Did? I have videoof the water right up in front of
the bus right at Ridge in Midvale, which I don't think you know,
in my sort of talking to folkshas happened in any kind of recent memory.
Yeah, yeah, water all theway up. It was. It
was quite something. Yeah. Wetook a look at that and said,
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what can we do here? Thereare a number of residents living on Ridge
Avenue that stretch of Ridge, justas well as a number of our wonderful
businesses, and so we can't havea thriving neighborhood and a thriving commercial court
or without working on that issue.Absolutely well. I'm glad to see that
there is some progress being made andfiguring out a way to mitigate the flooding,
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because it's only going to get worse, as we know, because of
all the crazy weather changes in globalwarming thiss been happening. Now, someone
who's from Philadelphia but not that neighborhoodor from out of town and would like
to know more about everything that EastFalls has to offer, is there a
place you can go? Absolutely so, I'll name a couple of places.
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One our website discover Eastfalls dot org. And then we are on Instagram and
our handle is discover East Falls.And actually you can go straight to our
business structory where you can filter bytype of business. So if you're looking
for fitness, you can filter there. If you're looking for coffee shops,
you have two wonderful coffee shops vaultonVine on Midvale, thunder Mug Cafe on
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Ridge Avenue and vault Vine also doesamazing florals, so they're also known for
their florals too. Fitness Beauty FitStrong is a wonderful fitness studio. One
of many wonderful fitness opportunities in thearea, and that is discover Eastfalls dot
Org backslash businesses, and it's actuallyat Google Maps. You can sort of
click and see and hopefully plan yourday in East Falls a little bit that
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way too, because you can sortof see the dots on the map and
say, oh, I can dothis here and then walk over here.
Yeah. No, that's great becausecertainly the adjacency to Kelly Drive and Martin
Luther King Drive. I know thatI often walk or run along those trails
there. It would be just ahop, skip and a jump to run
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over and get some thunder coffee,Yes, Thundermud Cafe, Thundermund Cafe.
Yes, that's great, and thenmaybe get a yoga class and a blow
some glass so exactly exactly or thatas well. Yeah. So there's so
much to do, and we alwayslove putting a focus on neighborhoods because I
think the thing that's so amazing aboutPhiladelphia is that it is in fact a
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city of neighborhoods, and sometimes wedon't go outside of our comfort zone and
check out all the incredible richness that'savailable in other neighborhoods. So it's really
wonderful to hear East Falls has somuch going on and for those who are
looking for fun things to do,fun places to shop, or recreate or
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be creative, then East Falls shouldbe a destination. What is that website?
One more time, discover Eastfalls dotorg. Fantastic. Well, we
look forward to having you come backand tell us more about the developments happening
in East Falls as they evolve.East Falls very cool neighborhood. And Michelle
Feldman is the director of East FallsDevelopment Corporation. Thank you so much,
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Thank you so much for having me. Boy. I am so glad I'm
not a young girl growing up inthe world today. It seems as though
the challenges that I had when Iwas growing up, whether it's peer pressure,
bullying, all those things that reallyimpact the self image and the personal
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growth of a young girl, wellI had all those things. But now
on top of that, we layerso much more with social media and just
the unrelenting onslaught of images that weget from the media makes it very challenging
to be a young girl these daysgrowing up, but there are some wonderful
programs that support girls in developing astrong sense of self and also their leadership
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potential. Girls' Lead is a leadershipand life skills program that is sponsored by
the Women's Resource Center. And totell us more about this program, we
have Cheryl Brubaker. She's executive directorof the Women's Resource Center. Well,
thank you so much, Cheryl forjoining us here today. And why did
the Women's Resource Center believe that itwas necessary to have a program like this,
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and then let's talk about what theprogram is. Well, sure,
I think the context is a littlebit helpful because the Women's Resource Center has
a number of different women's services thathelp women going through difficult times. And
I think Girls Lead was opportunity toactually be a little more preventive and be
able to help to instill some ofthose skills that women were asking for later
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in life. And so to havethe opportunity to kind of say, hey,
we can start talking about this atmiddle school and high school. What
a great opportunity to prepare girls forthe rest of their lives. So we're
talking about middle and high school students, what are some of the things that
you do in order to nurture theirleadership potential and their sense of self worth.
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Sure, so we focus a loton for soft skills. It's communication,
problem solving, decision making, andconflict resolution. And those soft skills
not only are determined to be protectivefactors against certain challenges that girls might run
into, eating disorders, teen pregnancy, you know, several things along those
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lines, but they are also sortof the building blocks of emotional literacy,
of empowerment of and of leadership.And so by focusing on those skills,
we can really bring the soft skillsto bear for girls as they think about
whether it's a stem field that they'reentering into, whether it's music and arts.
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They're going to have these skills tobe able to assert themselves and ask
for what they need. So howdo you execute this program? Is it
in one place? Is it spreadout to different schools, different locations?
How does it work? We workwith this directly with the schools, So
we work with and it's held generallyduring the school day. We have a
couple of schools that do it afterschool. But it's really a matter of
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working with the school as a truepartner and figuring out where it makes sense
within their schedule to have this happen. And then we contract with professional facilitators
who maybe have a licensed social workerdegree, maybe they are licensed professional counselor.
And while it's not intended to bea therapy group, we do see
it as psycho educational. We knowthat things can come up in the group
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and we want our facilitators to beprepared to be able to address those So
the facilitator goes into the school,works with usually the school counselor or whoever
the school has designated as their schoolis on to kind of make the program
happen within the school day. Well, it's very important, and it's such
a wonderful resource for girls because weknow that they're experiencing kind of an unprecedented
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mental health pandemic in a sense.I read something Crazy, which is nearly
one in three high school girls consideredaside in twenty twenty one, marking a
sixty percent increase since twenty eleven.So we know that there's a lot of
pressure on girls these days, andoften unspoken and unresourced. So how does
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a young girl find out about theprogram, how do they sign up?
Give us all those details. Sure, So, our process actually usually involves
enlisting the school personnel up front tohelp identify the girls that we use the
phraise untapped leadership potential. So we'renot necessarily putting out an open call for
the girls to sign up who wouldsign up already. We really want to
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find those girls who are maybe kindof floating beneath the radar. That being
said, any girl who wants toparticipate can always talk to her school counselor
and say, I'm really interested inthis program and I know they would be
happy to get them connected with it. And once they've kind of identified this
group of girls we can usually haveup to about twenty twenty two, they
form this cohort which allows the girlsto really be practicing these skills together and
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they get to talk about their experiences. And I think one of the things
that has really struck me as Ilook at the notes that our facilitators submit
to me, is that is whatthe girls are going through and the types
of things that they're noticing. Andyou know, girls talking about being sexually
harassed on the way home from school, girls talking about just the unhealthy conflict
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among the adults around them. AndI think part of the value of the
program isn't just teaching the skills,but it's giving these students the space to
really talk about the tough stuff andtalk about what they see going on around
them. A key part of theprogram is actually talking about a need in
the community or in their school andthen developing a project to address that need,
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and so that really engages them atanother level. But a lot of
it is about them finding their voiceand really finding a way to kind of
talk about the tough stuff, whetherit's what's happening on social media, whatever,
whether it's it is concerns about afriend who might be experiencing depression or
anxiety. They talk about all ofthat stuff, and it's an opportunity for
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them to really think about how doI how do I engage the adults in
my life if I need help.We added a component post pandemic, or
sort of somewhere in the midst ofthe pandemic, really focusing on what we
called emotional literacy, so not necessarilygetting into mental health per se, but
really help kids talk about this ishow I'm feeling, and how do I
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talk to someone else around me andan adult in my life about how I'm
feeling. And that's one of thethings that I get excited to see is
when I read comments at the endof the program where the students are talking
about how they've been able to talkto their mom about something that they weren't
before, or they've been able totalk to a teacher about a challenge they
were facing. Is not just thatimprovement in communication with each other, but
(27:26):
also in seeking out help from theadults around them. Yeah, that's great
because sometimes kids don't know how tospeak to adults, and being able to
find the right words or the rightstrategies for doing that is just such a
valuable tool. Now you're in twentythree schools, and I just want to
mention that you're not only in Philadelphia, but you're all over the place.
(27:47):
You're in Westchester, you're in Southampton, Warminster. You've got these programs spread
out in a lot of different locationstwenty three. I understand if people want
more information about this program, howdo they find out more? Well,
the easiest way is to go rightto our website, which is Women's Resource
Center dot net. And if yougo there, plenty of contact information and
(28:10):
it's very easy to reach out throughour website or the phone numbers on there,
and any one of us are happyto get you connected. We have
an amazing Girls Lead Program director who'sreally supported schools in getting the programs off
the ground. We've had parents workask for it in their school, so
we've had it initiated from a lotof different places. So if someone's excited
(28:32):
about the program, I would encouragethem just to reach out to us and
we'll help them figure out how toget it going within their school district.
Fantastic And just a final quick mention, the Women's Resource Center is a whole
lot more than the Girls Lead Program, so very quickly tell us what you
have to offer. Sure. Sofirst we have an information and referral helpline,
so women can go on and talkto a volunteer, a live person
(28:56):
and talk about whatever they're they're searchingfor their needs, and our helpline really
tries to connect them with relevant resources. And then from there we have free
and reduced cost counseling. We havea very low cost legal consultation on issues
like divorce and child custody, andthen we also have financial stability services that
are really focused on helping women bothadvance their career as well as manage their
(29:21):
money. Wonderful. So you coverall of us from early on to in
our senior years. That's what theWomen's Resource Center is able to do with
lots of great resources, including thisprogram called Girls Lead, a leadership and
life skills program that the Women's ResourceCenter started in nineteen ninety nine to help
middle and high school girls with untappedleadership potential find their footing and drive.
(29:45):
Thank you so much, Cheryl Brubaker, Executive director of the Women's Resource Center,
appreciate it. Thank you so much. You can listen to all of
today's interviews by going to our stationwebsite and typing in keyword community. You
can also listen on the iHeartRadio appIt's Philadelphia Community Podcast. Follow me on
Twitter and Instagram at Lorraine Ballard.I'm Lorraine Ballard Morrel and I stand for
(30:07):
service to our community and media thatempowers. What will you stand for?
You've been listening to what's going on, and thank you