The Young Women’s Leadership Program by New American Pathways serves 21 refugee girls from the metro Atlanta area. The program is designed to better prepare these young women for a future of success through helping them obtain personal, professional and academic goals. In September, they welcomed their new cohort and many returning mentors for their first workshop of the new year and took a trip to the Beltline Lantern Parade. Olivia Reburn, the new Child and Youth Resource AmeriCorps Member, shares her thoughts on how the event went.
In September, the Young Women’s Leadership Program had its first workshop and field trip. It was wonderful catching up with our returning mentees and seeing some new faces!
We participated in a Mental Health workshop at New American Pathways, where we learned how to recognize signs of depression, factors that contribute to mental imbalance and ways of coping with stress. A counselor from the Care & Counseling Center of Georgia gave a talk and led the young women in activities that illustrated how untreated mental health issues can affect their school performance, social life, and futures.
After the workshop, the young women showed their creative sides by decorating paper lanterns for the Atlanta Beltline Lantern Parade, which over 20,000 people attended to light up a perfect late-summer evening. We walked over two miles down the Eastside Trail, carrying our beautiful glowing lanterns through cheering crowds and festivities. Walking is definitely one way to reduce stress, although navigating the bus through Atlanta event traffic definitely wasn’t! We had a blast celebrating community and creativity while benefiting from physical activity.