The Duquesne Duke

Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Courtesy of Trisha Oefinger A Duquesne student helps a young girl at a local elementary school design a T-shirt, which reads, "Reasons why I am Strong"

Strong Women, Strong Girls was founded in 2000 by Harvard University freshman Lindsay Hyde and six college students who willingly gave up their time in order to volunteer at two elementary schools. After rapidly growing at Boston-area universities, it came to Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh, the second city with Strong Women, Strong Girls, has chapters at Duquesne, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. The 50 college students that participate in Pittsburgh mentor over 150 elementary schools. The selected schools have 50 percent or more students on free or reduced lunches. This helps more needy schools to receive the aid of surrounding universities, and allows the group to reach out to multitudes of young girls in grades three through five.

Duquesne's chapter of Strong Women, Strong Girls, founded at the beginning of the spring 2007 semester, has eighteen mentors. The students who mentor serve Arsenal, Manchester and Roosevelt elementary schools, part of the Pittsburgh Public School system, in Lawrenceville, Manchester, and Carrick, respectively, as well as the Providence Family Support Center.

Co-director and mentor junior Erin Pribozie believes that by having positive influences, the girls will wind up making better decisions.

"It's better to start early to tell them that they can be strong girls and that there are better things that they can do," Pribozie said.

Fourth-year pharmacy major Trisha Oefinger is a co-director and mentor of the program and feels that Strong Women, Strong Girls gives the girls a sense of stability.

"I absolutely love the empowerment of girls and women in the program. This is when [young girls] learn to develop who they are before peer pressure becomes a huge problem," Pittsburgh program manager Mila Ntuyen said.

The whole premise of giving inspiration, advice and good morals to the girls at an early age is preparing them for when conflict starts to arise.

"It might not seem like a big difference now, but in five to ten years when they're in high school, it's going to make a difference," Pribozie said.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools