SL Proposal

Service Learning Proposal for Beautiful Butterflies Mentoring Program Inc.

By: Andrea Thompson, Latoya Rattery, Nadean Richards

February 16^th 2012

Meredith Tweed

WST 3015-001

Program information:

Beautiful Butterflies Mentoring Program, Inc.

Office Phone (321)-972-5862

Cell Phone (850)-443-3088

E-mail: beautifulbutterflies.empower@gmail.com 

Web address: www.inspirebeautifulbutterflies.org 

Address: Beautiful Butterflies Mentoring Program, Inc. 

PO BOX 2594 Eatonville, Florida 32751

Project  Details:

Unity between You and Me: Recognizing Commonalities and Enhancing Individuality

Time: 12:00pm-3:00pm

Location: NW Community Center

Facilitators:  Andrea Thompson, Latoya Rattery, Nadean Richards

Potential Event Dates:  Feb.18, Mar.3, Mar.17, Mar.31, Apr.14

Community Partner Profile:

Mission: This is a non-profit agency that provides mentors for girls’ ages 9-18. BBMP connects women in the community with young girls who desire to have a mentor. Our Volunteers and Mentors are dedicated women from diverse backgrounds and professions who are dedicated to working closely with girls to identify their needs. BBMP provides different services to clients such as Academic Support Programs, Life Skills Development Programs and Counseling Services. They also provide one to one mentoring, summer workshops for help with self esteem, and hands on education networking programs centered on community participation. 

http://www.inspirebeautifulbutterflies.org/organizationalbackground.html

Proposal:

The purpose behind this event is to illustrate to the girls how similar all women of color are despite our assumptions, while encouraging them to celebrate their individuality. Our action plan is incorporated into an event consisting of two main activities. The first activity involves an anonymous Question/Answer session with the girls after having refreshments and playing an ice breaker game. This first activity will involve the Facilitators introducing themselves and providing a brief history of their past and different obstacles they have overcome. Facilitators will then ask the girls to answer a list of questions on paper anonymously. The questions that will be asked are the following:1)Write down a positive and negative childhood experience, 2)What are your fears, strengths, weaknesses , 3)What do you like to do,  4)What do you dislike doing, 5)Who is your favorite singer/rapper,  6)What is your favorite movie, 7)What does your favorite meal consist of,  8)What do you want to be when you grow up,  9)What convicts you (we will explain this),  10)Who do you think is the least similar to you in the group and why,  and lastly, 11)Who do you think is the most similar to you in the group and why. After the girls complete their questions they will place them in a bag and the facilitators will read through them and comment on the responses. The goal behind this activity is to show the girls that we are all more alike than we think and to not judge anyone by their appearance because they may be similar.

         Our second activity will involve facilitators showing the girls their vision boards and explaining what each picture represents to them. Facilitators will then explain how to complete a vision board and the girls will work on them together. To conclude the event, everyone will present their vision board and explain why they chose the pictures on their vision board. Facilitators will then reflect on the concepts discussed during the event and explain to the girls how they can encourage each other and refrain from judging. Each girl will bring their vision board home and be assigned to place it somewhere in their room where they can see it every day.

Proposal Plan:

It is estimated that 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by other students. Bullying has become an epidemic in our society today and we want to minimize that. We want to impact, influence, and change lives in the community by inclusive workshops that will build a community within Beautiful Butterflies and create a stronger bond for the girls among their peers. In doing so we will have workshops, discussions, and exercises such as the human knot as an icebreaker and introduce the girls to the term we have been discussing in class which is commonalities. We believe that this activity will help them in identifying, influencing, and inspiring each other to be aware of individual stories.  We understand the significance in numbers so we want them to know that they are stronger together. We will introduce “My Sister’s Keeper” which will encourage the girls that they are a family in Beautiful Butterflies. It will help them to realize they are not alone in this world and that they have extended family like each other that they can call on .Our ultimate goal is to resolve conflicts to create solutions to end bullying in schools and other negative influences that might be in their lives . As we shape the girls to have confidence within themselves they can encourage others about Beautiful Butterflies so they can all fly against all odds.

Supplies:

Supplies that we would need in order to host this event will be poster Boards, crayons/markers/colored pencils, paper, magazines, scissors, tape, snacks, drinks, and name tags. During our event, we will all be involved in each activity and provide feedback equally.  We are taking on the event as a group so we have not designated any particular jobs to each other. We will all come together to fund snacks and posters for the event.

TimeLine:

We would like to facilitate 5 individual events for five Saturdays. The five Saturdays we will be attending the group will be Feburary18th, March.3th, March.17th, March.31st, April 14th. Our goal is to work with different girls each Saturday because we will be having the same activities for the event each time.

Rationale:

The problems that BBMP addresses include self worth, conflicts between young girls, getting good grades in school, and having a healthy relationship as well as being physically healthy. They address all of these issues in the mentoring program because these girls need someone positive in their life to help them become successful women. Everyone has a past and these mentors want to help these girls heal and move in the right direction for their future. Self worth is very important to this organization because they believe every girl or woman needs this in their life to get respect from others and to have respect for themselves. This project relates to my women’s studies class because the course is about bringing women together for a specific cause and so is this project. Women need to stick together instead of going different ways and disrespecting one another. In order to produce change someone or a group of people have to address it. We are going to teach these girls to stand up for themselves and make sure there voice is heard from anyone they talk to.

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