Empowered Flower Girl to Host Online Discussion Encouraging Mentors for Girls/Young Women During National Mentoring Month

Posted on by empoweredflowergirl

Empowered Flower Girl is less than a week away from our follow up conversation on Mentoring Girls & Inspiring Sisterhood.

Join us Jan. 31 from 6 to 7 p.m. ET over at www.instagram.com/empoweredflowergirl where we will examine results from Plan International’s State of the World’s Girls report as well as resources to empower girls/young women and gender-expansive youth.

We will also share details about our She’s EmPOWERed program honoring female-identifying changemakers, nonprofit founders, social entrepreneurs and others using their gifts and talents to bring joy to others.

Empowered Flower Girl Founder and Chief Empowering Officer Rasheda Kamaria Williams will address the top challenges facing 21st century children and teens well as what parents, educators and other youth advocates can do to support young people in these difficult times.

“The past few years have been tough on everyone. But it’s been especially tough on young people. Now is the time for us to come together and support the next generation,” said Williams, a mentoring consultant and empowerment speaker. “We are dedicated to helping girls and youth of all backgrounds grow into strong, confident and contributing members of society. They just need positive role models and resources to succeed.”

One other resource that Empowered Flower Girl offers is Girl World Peace Academy – a virtual course and coaching program for adults who aspire to make a difference for young people in their schools and communities.

Girl World Peace Academy provides participants with the skills, tools and knowledge necessary to become effective mentors and role models for girls/ young women and gender-expansive youth. Through the course and 1:1 coaching, participants learn how to support and empower 21st century children and teens to reach their full potential.

“We believe that every young person deserves to be surrounded by positive, caring adults who can help them navigate the challenges of growing up,” Williams said.

Enrollment is currently open for the course.

Girl World Peace Academy Investment:
The course is valued at $897 but Empowered Flower Girl is offering it for only $297. Enroll by Jan. 31 to receive and additional 30-minute coaching session.

Girl World Peace Academy

She’s EmPOWERed: Calgary student’s gesture to help friends grows into nonprofit providing essential support to the community

Posted on by empoweredflowergirl

When times get hard, people often find themselves in need of help. Sometimes, that help comes from strangers but other times it comes from supportive friends.

Meet Deep Braich – a friend on a mission to help those in need.

Deep, a 20-year-old university student from Calgary, Alberta, is the founder of Youth Helping Youth YYC. She started the organization at the height of the pandemic to provide much needed hygiene supplies to young people in her community.

“When the Covid lockdown was first announced, my classmates and I were doing our best to stay in touch with one another through social media because we all felt the drastic toll it had on our relationships with one another,” she said. “We shared with one another the problems we were having with families losing jobs, having an increase in financial difficulty because the university was going to start in the fall, and my female friends being unable to access feminine hygiene products because of financial difficulty, the inability to leave the home, and many more concerns.”

After hearing about the issues her friends and other associates were facing, Deep wanted to do her best to help. She started looking for any extra hygiene products like shampoos, pads, and tampons that she had at home and started packaging them up into brown paper lunch bags to keep them discrete.

“I would leave the package outside my front door and my friends would come to pick it up to take home,” she added. “The number of friends I was helping started to increase when those I had helped started telling their friends that this was something I was doing. Slowly people from all over Calgary – teenage and adult women – reached out because they were in need.”

Deep was initially funding the project with her own savings and the money she earned from babysitting and a summer job. But she needed more resources to meet the need in her community.

After receiving some local and even international media coverage about the project and the selfless work she was doing, Deep started receiving messages from people asking how they could donate. “Suddenly the project I had started to create a difference amongst my friends became a project to create a difference amongst my city,” she said. “ When organizations like the Women’s Shelter began to reach out to access feminine hygiene kits, I became more aware of the structure of our society and the people at the bottom of the economic triangle who are in need of hygiene products year-round, even more now because of Covid.”

Youth Helping Youth YYC was founded as a result.

What started as a thoughtful gesture to help friends has become an official nonprofit operating under Youth Helping Youth Alberta, an umbrella organization for Youth Helping Youth YYC.

“We started local with the YYC title and we wanted to provide support to more youth communities, therefore we registered ourselves as Youth Helping Youth Alberta Foundation to provide opportunities to establish smaller umbrella organizations in other cities,” Deep said.

To date, the organization has provided over 2,075 feminine hygiene kits to women in Calgary and parts of Alberta. The organization works with local emergency shelters as well as housing and youth organizations. It also offers mental health, anti-bullying and anti-racism workshops.

Youth Helping Youth is youth-run in all facets – from projects, ideas and planning to communications, social media and networking.

“We work together to build solutions to youth social issues and advocate for our fellow youth,” Deep noted. “We find that youth issues are often put aside and we want to bring the spotlight back on this community for politicians to recognize the support and resources our youth need.”

Deep is a true advocate with big aspirations. After completing her undergraduate studies, she plans to go to law school and become a lawyer while also continuing her work in the community.

Connect with Youth Helping Youth YYC:

Instagram

Facebook

Email: calgaryyouthhelp@gmail.com

Teach Your Child Money Lessons With These Invaluable Tips

Posted on by empoweredflowergirl

By Laura Pearson

Teaching children how to be financially responsible is a big job, but if you start early, you can give them the tools they need to make good decisions for the rest of their lives. These days, there are many resources available that will help you and your child tackle financial literacy – from board games to phone software to online learning tools. Not only that, you can work in lessons on your own while you’re grocery shopping or setting up an allowance.

Keeping the conversation about money open with your kids is a great way to show them real-life examples, especially when you’re about to make a big purchase, such as a home. Talk to your kids about the process of home-buying and why it’s so beneficial for a long-term financial plan.

Include Your Children in the Process

When it comes to buying a house, including the entire family in the process will open up the conversation about what goes into financing, how to build up good credit and create some security for the future, and how to handle buying and selling according to what the market is like.

Talk to older kids about how the market either favors buyers or sellers and how the local economy affects a seller’s ability to attract potential buyers. Other factors include the season, how many homes are currently for sale in a given area, and current interest rates. Because there are so many details that go into buying or selling a home, involving your kids in the process now will help them understand it a bit better when they’re ready to do so on their own.

Let Them Shop with You

Handling big financial decisions as a family—such as buying a home—is a great way to teach young people about how it all works, but you can do it on a smaller scale as well. Going grocery shopping for the week is an excellent opportunity to teach your kids about the importance of a budget and how to stick to it, so write out a list and allow them to help you figure out how to plan for meals within the amount you want to spend. This real-life experience is invaluable for kids of many different ages.

Look for Fun, Money-Related Games

Another way to get in real-life experience with finances is to find cash-related games your kids will enjoy, such as Monopoly, Pay Day, or The Game Of Life, and play them as a family. You can also use real money and play your own games at home, allowing your child to become a banker or business owner who must give you change after a “purchase.” Talk to your kids about sales tax and how to plan for purchases, especially if they’re old enough to receive an allowance.

Let Them Take Responsibility with Credit

It can be daunting to hand over financial responsibility to your children, but setting up an allowance offers a great learning opportunity where saving and spending are concerned. You might even consider looking for a kid-friendly credit or debit card that allows you to load a certain amount, or setting up a checking or savings account in your child’s name. Additionally, you can use this opportunity to teach your children about credit scores and reports, how they work, and the importance of maintaining a good score — which can help you when it’s time to purchase that new home. This type of financial literacy is crucial to learn as kids get older, but starting early will help them see the value of money now.

Guide Them Through Long-Term Planning

As your kids age, it’s important to guide them through the process of making long-term plans and executing them. Having a sound financial plan is important for any path in life, but if your child has college aspirations, they need a sound plan for that as well. Begin the process of developing those plans with your children as they enter high school, and help them adjust as necessary through graduation and beyond.

Teach Them About Starting a Business

 When teaching your kids about starting a new company, there are a few key steps that you should focus on. The first is to help them write a solid business plan. This should include information on their target audience, their marketing strategies, and their budgetary needs for things like supplies and startup fees. It’s also important to discuss the importance of networking and connecting with other entrepreneurs, as this can be a valuable way to gain support and advice as they start out in the world of business. Finally, you should work with your child to identify any potential roadblocks or challenges that they might encounter along the way.

Teaching young people how to handle money and credit is a process that will help everyone in your family learn about the importance of being responsible. Utilize online resources when possible, help them develop long-term plans, teach them about starting a business, and keep the conversation about money open so you can answer any questions your children have.

Empowered Flower Girl strives to help positively strengthen the relationships between young people and those who care about them. Be sure to spend some time exploring the site to learn more about what we do.

Laura Pearson, of Edutude, is passionate about teaching the younger generation. Edutude was built to share resources on how to keep children engaged and in love with learning.