For more information on our partnership please click here...
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We are here today to share our story of the power that our organizations have in impacting the lives of women and girls in our community. We began this conversation a year ago and realized that we share a vision----not just to provide quality programs and services----we want to change the world for women and girls.
We maximize our resources to change more lives, particularly in this economy! We are strong alone----together we are truly powerful.
Our organizations impact more than 60,000 women and girls each year.
Our work impacts the lives women in Southern Arizona----- 52% of the population. We have the ability to touch every woman’s life.
Together we effect lasting sustainable change and we invite you to partner with us to empower women and girls, break the cycle of abuse and build our next generation of leaders.
We’d like you to imagine, really imagine it… a woman at the end of her rope, no paycheck, kids are fighting, she just cooked the last box of mac and cheese…
I’m Maria I need help. I need a job and I don’t know where to start.
Fast forward to Maria getting off the Bus outside the YWCA.
I am here to meet with someone who can help me. I need a job and they said you would help. But I don’t know how to do anything. I don’t have clothes to wear; I’ve never been on an interview…. Maybe it is hopeless.
It’s not hopeless. Maria meets with a Counselor at the YW. She is just one of the 24,000 women who participate in YWCA programs each year.. She gets employment training and career guidance and through her individual counseling sessions Maria finds the courage to speak something out loud that she has never spoken before….
My boyfriend beats me in front of our daughters.
The counselor listens and then tells Maria about Emerge. She encourages Maria to call for an appointment to share her story with the professionals at Emerge. Maria is scared; the Counselor assures her that they’ll know how to help just like we did.
I’m Maria, I need help.
Maria’s call is just one of 20,000 answered by the Emerge Crisis line every year. Maria and her daughters visit Emerge. They make a plan. They move into transitional housing, were they are safe. Maria continues her work with the YWCA building her job skills.
Maria’s daughters Jessica and Andrea are scared, they fight, they cry… At Emerge there are other girls too. These girls meet every Wednesday afternoon in the kitchen with a very cool college woman named Kim. Kim is the Girl Scout leader at Emerge. The girls join 15,000 Girl Scout sisters when they become members of the Emerge troop.
It takes time but Maria and her daughters begin to change. They are not scared. Maria has confidence that she can get a job the girls feel secure and happy in their Girl Scout troop they too have more confidence.
Maria begins to thrive. Through the YWCA she builds the skills for her resume, gets a beautiful suit to wear from My Sister’s Closet, has a job interview and lands a job.
Emerge helps Maria and her daughters find a house to rent through their low cost housing program. They move to a new neighborhood and go to a new school where they are excited to learn that there is a Girl Scout troop. Maria becomes a co-leader for the troop.
Maria continues to attend support groups at Emerge to help break the cycle of violence that has overwhelmed her life. She attends the Women & Money Conference and begins to save $20 out of every paycheck.
Maria tells her story to other women at the YWCA’s Women’s Leadership Conference. She shares how the united support of the YWCA, Emerge and Girl Scouts improved her life and the lives of her daughters.
It is a complicated story… our lives are complicated. It takes more than one agency to help rebuild a life, it takes a whole community.
There are Marias across this community; they are your listeners and your viewers. We need them to know that we are here to help them change their lives and change our community.
Women are the heart of our community. Can you Imagine it…?
Change the life of a woman and you change the life of a family, a classroom, a neighborhood, a community!
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