My Sister’s Keeper is a program whose primary objective is to teach young women self-empowerment and learn skills for life. Mentoring relationships are provided within MSK as well as other activities. These activities help women in the program build communication skills, especially those who may struggle with self-esteem and confidence. MSK wants women to rise above their struggles and chase their dreams, while disregarding stereotypical comments. My Sister’s Keeper calls on young women to be themselves and speak their minds freely.
On January 7th, 2020, My Sister’s Keeper held a meeting with their students. In this meeting, Ms. Amanda, one of MSK’s instructors, talked to the students about stepping outside their comfort zones. To increase student involvement, a game of “Would you rather?” was started. The game consisted of two categories, collaboration, and communication. They would pick one and rotate the wheel to see which category would be chosen, the person selected had to choose a “Would you rather?” question from the category. After the activity was completed, Ms. Amanda gave feedback to everyone and requested that they do the opposite of what they chose. For example, one of the fellow students, Hailey, chose to write a 500-word essay over giving a 2-minute speech. Based on this, Ms. Amanda encouraged Hailey to challenge herself and do public-speaking more often. The same process of selection and advice was repeated for every student in attendance. All of the students left with a new goal for themselves.

In order to gauge the effectiveness of the program, I posed a few questions about the program to its instructors.
Ms. Nelson, MSK program instructor
Do you believe this program has had a good impact on or has helped its students thus far?
“The program is about the empowerment of girls and young women to be the best they can be. It’s about gender equality and engagement. It focuses on girls and women of color who have traditionally been disenfranchised and left behind. Even though we just started a couple of months ago, we have been expanding. We get new girls joining almost every week and at the end of our sessions either me or the other two coordinators, Ms. Amanda or Ms. Akaylah, will receive an email or a text from them thanking us and telling us how much fun it was, what they have learned, or how much they are looking forward to the next session. I would say we have been making a positive impact on the girls in our program.”
Are there new activities everyday, or is it a consistent routine ?
“There are monthly meetings with other coordinators in the My Sister’s Keeper program where we learn about the topics they would like us to cover every month. We then come up with plans and activities for the girls based on that. Starting this week our group is implementing something new called ‘Hot Topics.’ Every other week we will discuss a topic of the girl’s choice, where we can have judgment-free conversations, about things that are going on in the world that interest them. So, one week we will have a structured discussion about the topic of the month and the other week it will be an unstructured conversation about a ‘Hot Topic.’ Running our group this way breaks up the predictability of the meetings and the girls have a voice in what we talk about.”

Can you describe the MSK community?
“The My Sister’s keeper community is one of strong independent women and young girls mostly of color. We are focused on building safe and supportive communities where girls and young women feel valued and we can create clear pathways of opportunities for them. Our mission is to bring together diverse groups of young people and provide them with access to experiences that build confidence, strengthen community and sisterhood, celebrate greatness, and further our goals of equality and inclusion.”
What course of action are you planning to eventually take in order to strengthen relationships within the community?
“We have to do more community outreach. I am glad we did this interview so more girls and young women can read about us and want to join. We are always looking for new members. We have a big tent and everyone is invited in. We are hoping that when the students read this interview they would reach out to myself or the other coordinators to Ms. Amanda or Ms. Akaylah to join. Parents are an important part of the community as well. My Sister’s Keeper has monthly workshops with the parents of the girls in the program called ‘Parents as Partners’ where we discuss different topics that are empowering to them.”
Amanda Saechao, MSK program instructor
Do you believe this program has had a good impact on or has helped its students thus far?
“Absolutely! I am an advocate and firm believer of any work-based learning program that encourages fellowship among teens. Anytime you offer up life skills, or share knowledge acquired through experience, it makes an impact on young people. There is a lot of open discussion within My Sister’s Keeper and in just a month’s time, our members have already expressed that they feel empowered, supported and more confident.”

Are there new activities everyday, or is it a consistent routine ?
“Although we have a structured program, where we are aligned with the My Sister’s Keeper organization outside of WHSAD, as a whole, we introduce new topics and activities every week. The diversity in our sessions keeps us all on our toes and challenges us to talk about ourselves – which is a great way to understand one another and cultivate connections.”
Can you describe the MSK community?
“Here at WHSAD, we are a group of strong, vulnerable, confident, and supportive women. The advisors commend the members on their maturity and bravery, all the time. As we continue to grow, changes may occur but I’m sure those few things will remain the same. MSK thrives on the positive energy we’ve established. “
What course of action are you planning to eventually take in order to strengthen relationships within the community?
“In order to strengthen every member’s personal voice and relationship with the community, we will continue to connect through storytelling, spoken word, and writing. Additionally, we challenge our members to deepen their critical thinking skills every day. We feel it’s at the center of our objective to talk about important things like social justice perspectives, co-responsibility, and individual identity. Our members will take what they learned from our organization and make the community better just by being their true selves.”
Ms. Tomlinson, MSK program instructor
Do you believe this program has had a good impact on or has helped its students thus far?
Yes, I believe the program has had a good impact so far on the ladies who participate.
Are there new activities everyday, or is it a consistent routine ?
There is a new activity everyday; however we have a routine of doing a warm up exercise to get everyone in the group connected. Then we go into the activity that follows our monthly theme. The month of January’s theme is Fellowship.
Can you describe the MSK community?
In the MSK community, we have three advisors: myself (Akaylah), Ms. Amanda, and Ms. Nelson. Also, we have about 8 committed ladies who attend our weekly meetings. We have fun, be ourselves, learn from each other’s experiences and acquire life lessons. Moreover, we created a “hot topics” meeting day every other week to discuss current events/ real life situations that we face.
What course of action are you planning to eventually take in order to strengthen relationships within the community?
Eventually, in order to strengthen relationships within the community, I would hope MSK can do community service projects.