WRWOS: Chattanooga Girl’s Leadership Academy Mentoring Program
CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – The Chattanooga Girl’s Leadership Academy more than lives up to its name, thanks in part to the Empower Mentoring Program. It connects students with adult advocates who support them in their academics, college and career planning. That’s a long-term example of what’s right with our schools.
“Today is our introductory meeting with our students from the CGLA TVA and Mentoring Program. We will be meeting them for the first time today. And they’ll be meeting us for the first time.”
“Grab a hard hat and safety glasses.”
“So we partner with 16 different organizations across the Chattanooga Community. And these are workplace mentorships, because our girls either go to these mentorships or the mentors come on campus. And they work with our girls on different areas kind of like life skills and skills that they’ll need in their career,” said Rachel Lewis, Work Place Mentor at CGLA.
“So what kind of career can these young ladies expect here.”
“Here mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, for the managing the Waters of the US and uh even project management for managing projects inside the building,” said Justin McBath, Senior Project Supervisor at TVA.
“All right we can head on in.”
“We do mock interviews, different kinds of curriculums. The girls learn about different businesses in Chattanooga, the different opportunities that are given to them. They learn how to kind of write their resumés, how to apply to colleges. Some of our workplace mentors give scholarships to our students which helps them as they graduate,” said Lewis.
“I didn’t achieve what I wanted to at first. But I learned something that led me to be able to be successful with that.”
“A lot of our mentors work with our students from grades 9th through 12th. So they work with them for all four years. So they kind of get to know them on a really cool personal level,” said Lewis.
“So last year was our first year with that group. We had eighth graders, I bet about 22 of them. They came here and we developed short films about a topic that was interesting to them,” said Robyn Stringfellow, Manager of Education Content and Services at WTCI.
“And the community… the… sorry, the audience the audience, yeah um it’s basically like for anyone around the age that like you know, that goes through trauma.”
“They are developing their senior project and they have um identified a question or a problem in the community that they’d like to address. And their film is going to seek to um kind of convey that to an audience,” said Stringfellow.
“But I hope that my documentary will come out how I want so I can show every body what I’m trying to do in the world. Like, I want to change the world. I want to be something big in the world. I, I want like everybody to see like this girl that their parents came from Guatemala and Mexico did it. That she can and others can do it,” said Yajara Perez, a senior at CGLA.
“Amazing partners throughout the city of Chattanooga are tapping into this work bringing students into their building, teaching them what they do, showing them the ropes. Um I think it’s really wonderful opportunity for businesses to be able to give back to share their skill set; to ignite young people’s interest in the industry,” said Stringfellow.
“My mentor is in real estate already. And as I’m shadowing her, um she’s teaching me through the process telling me tips, that other people usually don’t know about buying houses,” said Sta’Lea Fant a senior at CGLA.
“So they kind of learn kind of get a head start in different businesses. So I want them to know how to experience their community in a different way. I want them to know how to be an active participant. And I think this program is really good at implementing that,” said Lewis.
