Nonprofit helps girls find their footing
In Oakland, 1 out of every 3 girls doesn’t graduate from high school, according to Girls Inc. of Alameda County.
The nonprofit organization prepares girls from neglected neighborhoods to navigate gender, economic and racial barriers. The chasm the poor must climb out of to stand on equal ground with the rest of us needs renewed attention.
Ask yourself: Who has access to opportunities, and who doesn’t?
“We are here to make sure that girls in underserved communities in Oakland, who happen to be girls of color, have access, opportunities and resources so that they can also fulfill their potential,” said Julayne Virgil, the Girls Inc. CEO.
Girls Inc. works with youths from kindergarten to high school. The programming, which includes education, nutrition and health modules, prepares the girls for life’s next steps. Virgil said the organization serves about 1,400 girls each year through programming. With counseling and community outreach, Girls Inc. helps about 10,000 people per year.
“What we’re doing is intentionally creating a space here where the girls know that they’re important, where they feel that,” Virgil said. “They live it, they breathe it. They support each other.”
For girls there isn’t a wand
that will magically eradicate economic obstacles, gender bias and misogyny.
“But what we can do is make sure that the girls have the skills, the resources, the environment that they need to be strong and to go out and to be successful in spite of all these things,” Virgil told me as we sat in her toasty 16th Street office in downtown Oakland. “Our ultimate goal is to have girls feel safe, feel valued and to feel prepared to achieve their dreams.”
Virgil understands the importance of reinforcements, because as a young girl, the East Oakland native took part in after-school programs.
“These are the pieces that helped shape an understanding of what was possible for me,” she said.
Virgil, who attended different schools than her cousins and other kids in her neighborhood, witnessed the inequity built into local education. That’s why she started tutoring at 14. She went to the University of Pennsylvania, one of the first in her family to graduate from a four-year college.
After college, Virgil got a job in New York. She had just started to run a weekend program for girls when 9/11 happened. That’s when she realized she wanted to focus her career on helping the disadvantaged.
When I visited Girls Inc., I saw girls grabbing sandwiches and milk from the front desk on their way to do homework. University flags are hanging on walls, doors and columns, a constant reminder to the students of what is possible. There’s also a yoga studio and fitness center. “Feminism” is written on the chalkboard in the kitchen, a nod to what’s always on the menu here.
Last summer, Virgil went on a mountain bike trip with some of the girls. There were several who were hesitant, because they didn’t know how to ride a bike well. There were a few crashes and falls.
“And the other girls were right there — ‘You got it. Pick yourself up,’ ” Virgil recalled. “And there’s something about that ability to know that you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to fall. What do you do? Do you have the resilience to get back up? Can you encourage somebody else to do that?”
As I waited to be escorted to Virgil’s office, a young woman walked in to the lobby. She told the receptionist that she had gone through the Girls Inc. program and is now hoping to become a volunteer.