Since 2008, female Tufts students have worked with the national non-profit organization Strong Women, Strong Girls (SWSG) to help girls in the surrounding Somerville and Medford areas. The chapter has attempted to encourage female empowerment and promote service work by mentoring local young women.
SWSG is committed to utilizing lessons from "strong" historical female figures to inspire young women to become leaders and role models themselves, according to its mission statement. Over the past few years, the national organization has expanded significantly, with now more than 3,000 active college mentors across the country. In 2013, the organization worked with elementary school students in over 60 communities, according to its national 2012-2013 Impact Report.
"We have offices in Pittsburgh, Boston, Miami and a pilot office in New York City," Mikki Pugh, program manager for the Boston headquarters of SWSG, said. "In Boston, we have been officially [around] for 10 years, since 2004."
Victoria Gibson, co-director of Tufts' SWSG chapter, described a similar expansion.
"We have currently 36 participants working this semester, and we are [working] at 10 sites in Somerville and Medford," Gibson, a sophomore, said.
The mentoring program includes two parts. In the fall, the program focuses on a "Countdown to Success" curriculum, where girls learn about various concepts, such as goal-setting and communication. In the spring, the mentors advocate service-learning to students. Working in teams of three, Tufts mentors facilitate groups of third to fifth grade girls in Somerville and Medford elementary schools once a week, according to Gibson.
Junior Nikki Bank, chapter coordinator for SWSG at Tufts, helped develop the spring curriculum with the Boston headquarters, and described what a typical mentoring session looks like.
"We follow the same general format ... to give consistency to the girls," she said. "We always begin with a check-in, in which you share your high and lows. Then we do a review from the prior week, [and] then we read a biography of a 'strong' woman."
According to Gibson, the curriculum designed by the national organization tries to cultivate certain skills in women starting at a young age.
"The skill curriculum includes things such as goal setting, stress management or critical thinking," Gibson said. "Those are things that you don't necessarily think about when you are younger."
The spring curriculum provides the elementary students with an opportunity to put the skills they learned in the fall into practice through a specific service project.
"This year, we are making fleece-tie blankets to donate to organizations of the girls' choosing," Bank said. "They are really simple, but it's really fun for the girls to create something tangible."
In addition to the mentoring sessions and service projects, Tufts SWSG has organized field trips that bring the girls to the Tufts campus. Junior Enxhi Popa, the other co-director of the Tufts SWSG chapter, explained some of the highlights from last year's trip.
"Our theme was 'Around the World,'" she said. "We had three different stations of ... activities. The first one was Salsa. ... We also had one [station] about a puppetry show."
"We took them on a tour around campus." Gibson said. "That ... [provides] a fun way to talk about college and the importance [of going] to college and what that looks like."
According to Gibson and Pugh, at the end of each year SWSG measures the impacts of its activities on the girls through surveys.
"We have surveys that ask girls questions such as, 'What [do] I want to be when I grow up?' [or] 'I have two adults that I can talk to - is that true?'" Gibson said. "We ask them the same questions at the beginning and end of the year, and we measure the impacts based on if there is any change [in the answers]."
"We do surveys with our mentors [to see] if they notice any differences in the girls and also what changes they experience," Pugh said. "We also do surveys with parents and the site facilitators, who are the people working at each of our schools."
According to the national SWSG 2012-2013 Impact Report, 85 percent of the participants reported improvement in their skill set. The mentors at the Tufts chapter, however, still had suggestions on how to improve the curriculum.
"Something that I would like to see in the curriculum is teaching girls more practical skills," Popa said. "I know there is an organization called Junior Achievement, which teaches elementary school students about business. I want to be able to incorporate some more practical career skills, [in order] to get the girls think about business in middle school."
SWSG at Tufts has also worked to attract a diverse range of mentors through various means.
"We have a partnership with [the Leonard Carmichael Society]," Gibson said. "In the past and this semester, we have been reaching out to cultural [groups], such as the Africana House, Asian American Center and the Latino Center, because we do have lots of girls of color, so [diversity] is very important to us."
Although Tufts SWSG is a part of the Leonard Carmichael Society, the organization does its own fundraising, according to Gibson and Popa.
"We are financially independent as a chapter," Gibson said. "One thing that we have done this year, which has been pretty successful, is our 'strong' stickers [to promote SWSG] ... We also have a letter writing campaign in the fall."
"This year we are going to do a big sale at the Sarabande show, and we will be selling baked goods and stickers," Popa said.
The leaders of Tufts SWSG also discussed their desire to increase group unity.
"We are working on strengthening the community of the Tufts mentors," Bank said. "Because so much of the program takes place off campus, we are working on making all the mentors here more cohesive."
"Our plan also includes [gaining] visibility on campus so that people know our organization," Popa said. "Our mission is to empower women - not just [to do] mentoring. So, we need to do lots of other things to gain [a] presence on campus."
Gibson agreed, and explained that she views her work as much more than just another extracurricular activity.
"We want the mentors to be really committed to SWSG," she said. "This isn't just a resume builder. It's about girls' lives."
