PORTALS 2 POWER
“Young girls imagining and shaping their future”
A PILOT MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
JasD’Jor: Emerging Philanthropists is developing a recurring empowerment and mentorship program for girls, ages 7 to 14 without regard to ethnicity, race, or faith tradition. The vision of Portals 2 Power (P2P) is to produce strong vibrant, confident young women with a powerful heart to live a life of love, service and compassionate leadership. It will encourage them to dream big, set goals, and strive to achieve those goals. They will learn that roadblocks can be stepping-stones, not just barriers to realizing their dreams. They will engage with a “village,” a support group consisting of a mentor, an elder, and a peer who will covenant with them to be supportive throughout their life’s journey.
Recent studies have shown that young girls have experienced increased anxiety, isolation, depression, and loss of confidence during the COVID pandemic.
They especially need to build a strong feeling of worth, value, and wholeness so that they can step into their power as the drivers of their own future. This program will address those needs and restore a sense of purpose, social connection, community and confidence in the participants.
PROGRAM AND STRUCTURE
P2P was inspired by Jade Davis, at age seven, whose imagination and excitement grew daily as she generated ideas for the program. The overall structure and name came from her experience of navigating through the pandemic. JasD’Jor coupled its own experience with programs teaching youth to become emerging philanthropists with Jade’s brilliant ideas to create Portals 2 Power. P2P is based on the Eight Dimensions of Wellness, a generally accepted model for personal development encompassing the social, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical, occupational, financial, and environmental factors that will ultimately create a well-developed young adult prepared to shape her future.
This P2P Pilot Program will be all virtual, operating like a 3D board or video game in which participants complete tasks to advance through the life portals to ultimately reach power. While moving through the portals of this 9-week program in a fun-filled environment, young girls will begin to develop the skills needed to negotiate an ever-changing future. Our protegees will record the journey visually and in writing, receiving achievement tokens as they move through the stages or portals.
Young people are visually oriented, and the tech world is what they know. This program is designed to be exciting and engaging. Tasks and activities relating to the Eight Dimensions of Wellness will include research projects, field trips, guest speakers, reading and writing, arts and crafts, career and business development, mentoring sessions, life skills, critical thinking, financial education, physical health and growth, and much more. Interacting with their mentors and other program participants while they complete these tasks and learning sessions will foster a healthy sense of achievement and leave the girls with life-long lessons, friendships and circles of support. We will then encourage program participants to become mentors as we expand and extend the program into future years, creating a “pay it forward” philosophy.
STAFFING
Staff will consist of an executive director, administrator, mentors, adult supporters, peer supporters, group coordinators, tech support, and psychological consultants.
EVALUATION
- Evaluation of the success of this program will be largely self-reported by the participants. At the onset of the program the girls will be asked to create an avatar/personality card with their personal feelings and descriptions of who they are and where they think they want to go in life. The cards will be placed in the Program Power Boxes. Along the journey they will collect tokens as they complete tasks that move them through the portals to power. They will video record and/or journal their thoughts and experiences as they move through the program.
- At the end of the journey, they will create new cards with their self-description. During the Graduation Power ceremony, after receiving their certificates, accolades from the community and from their Power Posse, they will share their cards and observe how they have been shaped by the program and note any changes that they feel and observe about themselves.
- Mentors will be given a survey to complete using a psychometric scale (for example, a Likert scale with “1” being strongly disagree and “5”being strongly agree) to rate each girl with whom they interact. We will administer the same survey periodically to identify observed changes in the participant, ongoing challenges, and a plan for continuing support. These data can yield a strong overview of the impact of the program.
- The program staff, having participated with mentors in a pre-program training session conducted by childhood development experts, will keep weekly notes about the participants. Progress along the lines of the Eight Dimensions of Wellness will be documented. A child psychologist will review all notes weekly and be available for consultation during the program.
APPLY TO THE PROGRAM
To participate in the pilot program (as a student or as an adult mentor) please download the appropriate form below, fill out and return to jasdjorep@gmail.com