Empowerment Resources' Journey Into Womanhood™ program kicked off the year with an introductory meeting to the Jaguars Foundation's Honor Rows, a nationally recognized program that uses seats at Jaguars home games as an incentive to encourage children and youth to set and achieve ambitious but realistic goals. Youth do not have to be an A-B honor roll student to participate.
 
Not only did JIWs and parents learn about Honor Rows, a JIW alumna, a past recipient of the Jaguar Community Scholarship Program at UNF, inspired them to take advantage of program.  Because she successfully completed Honor Rows, many doors of opportunities were opened to her. The young ladies learned to make  touchdowns of their own by goal setting and striving to be among the honored in the Honor Rows.  

Erica Mitchell is a Journey Into Womanhood alumna and a fulltime student in the nursing program at the University of North Florida. Last May, she took advantage of a life changing opportunity and studied abroad in Ghana, West Africa, as a part of the Ghana Project 2009. Erica spent 18 days in Ghana and shares an excerpt from her journal.

 

May 12, 2009-Today was my first day at the hospital. I was sweating as soon as I got there at 8:00 a.m. Christine gave us a tour of the hospital. We visited the maternity ward, and I heard the babies crying. I smiled when I heard it. The mothers were laying in the beds with sweat dripping down their faces. There is no air conditioning in the hospital. Some women were pregnant, and some having just delivered were on the ward. Everyone that we met responded with, "You are welcome." I met all of the nurses on the wards and some nursing students. I also got to tour the pediatric unit. A little boy was laying on one of the beds with clear fluid coming out of his mouth. The nurse told me that he was dying from hemolytic anemia. A doctor ran past me saying, "We have an emergency." I watched the little boy as he stopped breathing. I didn't say anything for a long time after that. I've never seen anyone die before. I also got a chance to visit the morgue. There were two dead bodies lying on top of each other waiting to be embalmed. I got to see two men that were being embalmed. When I stepped in the room, my throat started burning and my eyes started to water. The embalmer said it was because of the embalming fluid. After we finished touring the hospital, Christine let us go back to the hotel. We met the rest of the group to go to the Leper's village. I was able to asked members of the community their opinions about their living conditions and how they felt about the Ho municipal civic union. I saw one man who was a leper crawling on the ground because he didn't had stumps for legs and his hands were stubs because of the disease. Most of these people in the village were severely disfigured and therefore unable to work for their families. They were shunned from the rest of the community. A translator interpreted what the community members said. I saw a lot of things in one day that I would probably never have gotten to experience at home.

The mission of Empowerment Resources' Journey Into Womanhood™
program is to facilitate all that is healthy in the voyage into womanhood for girls ages 9 to 17. JIW promotes social, leadership and interpersonal skill development as well as community involvement and appreciation.