Help to Cultivate Young Women Leaders Through Local Mentorship

The Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP) champions female leadership by matching Ohio University student mentors with local middle school students. These OHIO students encourage their mentees to foster an understanding of themselves as leaders through personal connections and programs.

YWLP is a collaboration between the OHIO Women's Center and the Athens Middle School. Mentors are recruited through the Fall course "PCOE 2301C: Building Leadership in Adolescent Girls Through Mentorship." In taking this course, OHIO students gain the opportunity to be paired with local 7th and 8th graders. In addition to education about effective mentoring, this course takes a gendered approach to understand the particular challenges that adolescent girls face both within and outside of school.

Founded in 1997 at the University of Virginia Women’s Center, YWLP has expanded to more than a dozen “sister sites,” where the model is adapted around the United States and internationally. Ohio University joined the initiative in 2015.

By combining one-on-one mentoring with group activities that address girls' sense of self, scholastic achievement, body image, peer relationships, and healthy decision-making, YWLP helps empower middle school girls as leaders in their schools and communities.

“The programs I attended through the Women’s Center were some of the most valuable sources of education I received during my time at Ohio University," said Mallory Golski, 2019 Scripps College graduate. “The experiences I had through the Women’s Center have ultimately provided me with the knowledge and drive to fight for more inclusive and progressive spaces in my professional, familial, and social communities.”

The unique curriculum targets girls in their middle school years as they are navigating changing selves and shifting group dynamics – all while preparing to handle greater academics and social pressures in high school.

“Our mentors have found that they learn just as much from the mentees as the mentees learn from them,” said MaryKathyrine Tran, Assistant Director of the Women's Center. “Student mentors also build a new network of peers who are passionate about mentorship.”

In order to adapt to the pandemic last school year, YWLP had to be creative with what the program looked like, which led to the development of the Young Leaders Empowerment Series (YLES). The online curriculum currently has six online modules that include topics that coincide with the program’s philosophies.

“We hope to be back in person for the Young Women Leaders Program this year, but we also intend to continue adding to the YLES modules online,” Tran said.

Whether online or in-person, the program aims remain the same: to empower young women to connect and confide in one another through a safe space of understanding and coaching. Though this program has a gendered focus in looking at the experiences of women and girls' empowerment, it is open to anyone who believes they would benefit from a program with that lens.

The deadline to register to be a mentor is August 23rd. For more information, visit https://www.ohio.edu/diversity/womens-center/young-women-leaders-program or contact MaryKathyrine Tran at tranm@ohio.edu.