Highlighted Program: YWCA of Manchester
The
YWCA of Manchester has been serving girls and women since 1920. Current
programs and services include: The YWCA Crisis Service, the Girls’
Program Center and the YWCA Teen Program. In 1994, the health and fitness
components were closed and the agency focused on their human service mission,
to provide opportunities to women through the programs and services named
above.
YWCA Mission:
The YWCA is a women’s membership movement. Strengthened by diversity,
the YWCA draws together members who strive to create opportunities for
women’s growth, leadership and power in order to attain a common
vision: peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all people. The YWCA will
thrust its collective power toward the elimination of racism wherever
it exists.
Teen Program specific:
Since 1975, the YWCA has offered co-ed programming to help teens with
multiple risk factors and standard developmental issues to learn, practice
and develop proficiency with improved life skills.
The Peer Action Changing Tomorrow (PACT) Program for teens ages 14 – 18, offered since 1990 and the YWCA Lifeskills Program for 7th and 8th grade girls, offered since 1984 are the most long withstanding programs of the YWCA Teen Program.
In 2000, parents of young girls too old for most summer camps and too young for employment had communicated to YWCA staff, concern about what to do with their young adolescent daughters during the long, unsupervised days of summer. In 2001, The YWCA Girls And Leadership (GALS) Program was designed in response to this need. Serving an even greater purpose, the GALS Program addresses the specific developmental needs of girls ages 11-14 as they try to make sense of their changing bodies and the conflicting messages they receive about what it means to grow up female.
In a girl-centered, strength-based learning environment, participants of the GALS Program leave feeling more confident in their leadership skills, their futures and their ability to make healthy choices. The GALS Program gives participants a meaningful role in the camp community and prepares them to have meaningful roles in the larger community (i.e. babysitting, experience and confidence in activity planning). Unique in the YWCA’s work with young girls, is the attention to their relational nature. Teaching adolescent girls skills in negotiating relationships and communicating their needs, helps them learn to effectively manage not-so-sugar-and-spice feelings like anger, aggression and jealousy. YWCA Staff emphasize the strengths of girls’ relational nature, while acknowledging and challenging the harmful cultural norm of relational aggression.
Also in 2001, a second full-time staff member was hired to assist in
coordinating the YWCA Teen Programs. Since then, program capacity has
grown, with specific attention to the needs of girls in contemporary culture.
In addition to PACT, Lifeskills and the GALS Program, the YWCA Teen Program
offers Girls’ Circles, Girls Taking Control (GTC), Girls’
Night Out (GNO), Generations and Summer Teen Week.
For more information about the programs of the YWCA of Manchester, contact
us at
72 Concord Street
Manchester, NH 03101
(603) 625-5785
email: info@ywcanh.org
University of New Hampshire - Pettee Hall - 55 College Road - Durham, NH 03824 3/2/07