With Kate Stoops, Mariposa Coordinator

YWCA PREVENTION work in the elementary schools of Walla Walla and College Place has bloomed as the easing of Covid restrictions makes it possible for us to connect in person again.

After two years of lockdown, the specter of middle school has been extra daunting.

One student described it as — this is a direct quote! — the “smelly dark hallways of mean big kids.”

In Mariposa, we broach the topic and start to dispel the myths about middle school, while also equipping the young women with tools for knowing their value and boundaries to create a safer and stronger community.

THE MARIPOSA CURRICULUM

Goal-setting, communication, boundaries, self-love, and consent are just a few of the topics that our groups of fifth grade girls dive into.

We are proud of our broad pu­berty curriculum that helps orient our girls to upcoming changes, and empower them to feel comfortable and proud of their bodies.

HEART AND SOUL

In fifth grade, Valentine’s Day is a BIG deal. The making of your mail­box for potential valentines, and the solidifying of your crushes can make or break your self-image.

Mariposa groups work on chal­lenging the narrative for our girls.

In February, our groups wrote things that they appreciate about themselves in Valentines.

This activity embodies what Mar­iposa is for. As they were writing, the girls would say things to each other like, “oh wow that is true, you are an awesome basketball player,” or “I really like the way you help me with English sometimes; your English is really good.” or “You are super tall. That is so cool.”

Our Mariposa girls uplift and support each other, growing their confidence, respect, and self-love as they head into middle school.

Mariposa continues to bloom as we head into springtime, listening and sharing with each other while embodying the YWCA mission to empower women and eliminate racism.

We are excited about continuing to encourage and empower these young leaders.

MEET THE TEAM

EVERY YEAR, said Executive Director Anne-Marie Zell Schwerin, “we find the most remarkable young people to run the Mariposa program!”

The program, led this year by three Whitman College stu­dents, Anne-Marie said, “is a very part-time job we hope will have a full-time impact on the valley’s fifth-graders.”

Kiley Kom­nick (left) meets with 20 girls in afterschool programs at Green Park and Sharpstein Elementary.

Rebecca Patterson (right) is at Edison Elementary serving 15 girls in the afterschool program.

Kate Stoops (top) leads five girls in a lunchtime program at Davis Elementary in College Place.

Driving around town, chances are you will encounter a sign put in place by the YWCA or one of our supporters.

This spring, we’ve added a new April observance to our traditional Sexual Assault Awareness efforts: Child Abuse Prevention Month.

If you’ve seen an orange sign surrounded by little blue pinwheels spinning in the wind, that’s us!

Concern that every child lives a life free from violence and abuse is not new to us, and the YWCA is a safe, supportive location where place where abused children can be interviewed by trained, trauma-informed outside experts.

YWCA thanks our partners participating in the pinwheel project, including:

Allstate (Jessica Avery)
Children’s Home Society
College Police Department/City Hall
Columbia County Health System in Dayton
Dayton Memorial Library
Department of Children, Youth, and Families
Providence Health System (Second Avenue and St. Mary Medical Center campuses)
Walla Walla Clinic Pediatrics
Walla Walla County Sheriff’s Office
Walla Walla Pediatric Dentistry
Walla Walla Police Department

Blue Sabbath

We also invited communities of faith to join us in Blue Sabbath on Saturday or Sunday, April 29 and 30. YWCA is grateful to Pioneer United Methodist Church, First Congregational Church of Walla Walla, and Congregation Beth Israel for helping gather pinwheels and signs from other locations and posting them by their houses of worship.

Without volunteers like Traci and Marian helping assemble pinwheels and Richard, Paul and Mary, Punkey, Shelly, and Sonja gathering up the materials at the end of the month, projects like this might not happen.  Thank you!

Update coming soon!

In 2021 you made the Valley Giving Guide a huge success. This year brings even more benefits!

Q. What is the guide?

It’s a year-end effort by Blue Mountain Community Foundation (BMCF) to bring donations and attention to nonprofits making a difference in our community.

BMCF publishes the guide in two formats:

• A newspaper insert

• A website: valleygivingguide.org

Q. How much does it cost the YWCA to participate?

Like all the other community organizations, we pay nothing for the printed guide or the operation of the website.

Q. Where is my donation going  — to the YWCA, to the Valley Giving Guide, to BMCF? It sounds a little complicated.

It might help to think of your gift not as a donation to the guide; but as a donation through the guide. The VGG website is simply a tool for giving to the nonprofit organizations in our community. BMCF processes the donations and pays the fees and then distributes the funds where you specify. Every penny goes to the participating nonprofits.

Q. Why should I consider giving through the guide?

1. BMCF will again cover debit or credit card fees for all participating organizations. Depending on your card, waived fees are like giving 2–5% more without spending another penny.
2. Last year, other gifts, like checks, included fees. This year, the foundation is eliminating all fees.
3. Plus BMCF is securing funds to provide a bonus on up to $10,000 of each gift. The generous sponsors underwriting the bonus funds are listed on the giving guide website. During the checkout process you can choose to add 5% to the bonus pool yourself. This addition will show up on your receipt as “underwriting.”

Q. How much will the bonus be?

It was 10% last year; this year is still unknown. The bonus will depend on 1) total funds raised and 2) total donated to the bonus pool.

For example, a $500 gift through the guide or BMCF could grow by, say, an 8% bonus – $500 becomes $540. And BMCF covers card fees, so the nonprofit gets it all.

Q. On the Valley Giving Guide website, I saw something about a $20,000 match, but now I don’t. What happened?

That $20,000 was matched (and then some) on the very first day the website officially opened! If you compare the total on our page (which shows a row of adorable kiddos from My Friends’ House) with the total on the Leaderboard, you’ll see that the total on our page “includes $20,000 in matched donations.” If you made your donation on Nov. 29, chances are good that your donation was matched at 100% because of the $20,000 grant from J.L. Stubblefield Trust. The first day’s donations (and each gift up to $10,000 since) will grow by the additional percentage that is still to be determined.

The foundation has made an incredible investment in our valley with the time and funds put into the Valley Giving Guide.

Between amazing friends like you and the support of BMCF, the nonprofits in our community can continue the work of making our valley a safer, more joyful place to live.

We are proud to serve this community and always so grateful for compassionate people like you who believe in our valley’s women and families.

Domestic Violence Action Month promotes awareness for one month, but your support keeps the fight against DV happening for the other 11. Thank you!

Whether you read a book like No Visible Bruises, saw our displays, attended the vigil, or posted a yard sign, we hope that October helped you learn more about DV and the harm it does.

We had small but enthusiastic groups attend our book club/soup suppers and were grateful for this time to share.

Thank you to the university students who helped transform downtown (pictured, right and below).

Earlier in the month, another group helped a client clean, paint, and repair her new house.

Wild Willow and Safeway Floral helped us bring beauty to the sad narratives with buckets of blossoms, and St. Vincent de Paul made the stories more tangible with donated shoes that wouldn’t be sold.

Pastor Paul and Mary Eaves Mitchell made sure that the rain- soaked stories, shoes, and flowers were disposed of properly after five days on the walks.

“Several people,” he said, “stopped to say how meaningful and powerful the displays were.”

Trilogy Recovery Community and College Place Prevention Coalition (CPPC) joined YWCA this April and May in our community’s REDress Project.

Jaime Black started the REDress project in 2010 to represent missing Indigenous women and girls. Her first exhibition was in a museum in Winnipeg. (Photos on the Métis artist’s website show several of these powerful images.)

AWARENESS IS A START
April, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, is a time to address the community issue and campus issue of sexual violence.

But the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW) in the US and Canada reminds us that violence is also an intersectional issue.

That is, when social problems like violence and marginalization overlap, the harm is amplified.

In the US, Native American women are estimated to be more than twice as likely to experience violence as other groups. One in three Indigenous women is sexually assaulted during her lifetime, with 67 percent of the assaults made by non-Native perpetrators. On some reservations, in fact, Native women are killed at 10 times the national average.

PARTNERS JOIN YWCA
Lucinda Victorio, a School Recovery Support Ally & Advocate with Trilogy Recovery Community, worked with CPPC to spotlight Indigenous women lost in Washington state and create posters about their stories. These women have disappeared from their communities, some killed and some still missing.

Thank you to all the community members who displayed Red Dress yard signs about the project, displayed or donated red dresses, or shared a photo with the hashtag #MMIW.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

• Amplify missing person messages by sharing to your social media networks.
• Go to The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center and sign up for Legislative Updates or explore other resources so you can advocate for better protection.
• Visit the Bureau of Indian Affairs to learn how men are also at risk.

Thanks to YWCA USA and our Board of Directors, staff members are empowered with new online tools and funding to promote rest and resilience.

“Wellness couldn’t be more important,”, said Executive Director Anne-Marie Zell Schwerin, “especially now.”

For the last two years, she said, “we have endured a lot at work and home.” We’ve survived the challenges, “but have we thrived?”

Our Wellness Committee plans include activities and recognition to help reconnect staff social ties that were strained during the many months we couldn’t gather. And a staff newsletter will offer self-care reminders.

“I’m really excited to be a part of the Wellness Committee,” said MFH Office Assistant Brea Green. “Mental health is super important to me and I love the goal of this program.”

Follow us on social media as we share some of the wellness tips we discover. Join us on the wellness journey!

“My hope,” said Anne-Marie, “is that we will build healthy habits together and strengthen our bonds as co-workers and fellow humans.”

Share your favorite health tip with us by emailing wellness@ywcaww.org.

Your gifts support positions like Amara’s as YWCA Prevention Advocate

Names of leaders and links to each of their local YWCA chapters are at the bottom of this post.

On a blustery Walla Walla morning in late September, I logged into a zoom call with Michelle Tehedy, an 18-year-old YWCA leader from Soweto, South Africa. From the ten members of the 2021 World YWCA Leadership Cohort, we were partnered and asked to discuss the issues and solutions from our communities related to gender-based violence (GBV).

Michelle’s energy was contagious across the screen, and yet, despite her glowing smile, she admitted that she was exhausted after a week facilitating a multi-day GBV training course on for 150 youth in her community. We bonded over the inevitable tension of working in the field of GBV prevention, as stories of suffering and loss parallel those of survival and profound fortitude. We were united by our love of dance and our belief that to  end gender based violence we must create space to hear the voices of youth. 

“Feminism is not just an ideal that should be reached by all people, but more specifically, young men.” — Michelle

Over the past three months as a member of the Leadership Cohort, I have been working and learning alongside nine other young women changemakers like Michelle from YWCA chapters in India, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, South Sudan, Taiwan, and Zimbabwe. We are:

Board Members. Students. Activists. Filmmakers. Poets. Social Workers. Dancers. Organizers. Mothers. Sisters.

Together, across a 16-hour time difference between Walla Walla and Taipei, we share our stories, co-create works of art, and participate in leadership development sessions with powerhouse women leaders including:

1. Japleen Pasricha, founder of Feminism in India.
2. Kate Gilmore, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ted Talk “Fire, aim, ready.”
3. Cynthia Germanotta, president and co-founder of the Born This Way Foundation.
   

I am endlessly grateful for the opportunity to learn about global issues related to Gender Based Violence, and to showcase the amazing work being done in Walla Walla with the larger YWCA community. In the next few weeks, the Leadership Cohort Members will all be submitting blog posts to the platform World YWCA She Speaks which works to amplify young women’s voices. 

With love,
Amara Killen
Prevention Advocate and Human Rights Activist

Join this global solidarity movement

Please follow up to read our stories, and, if you are a young woman, girl, or female-identified youth, you can submit a blog post yourself to share your voice with the world. We want to hear your story!

Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or comments to me at akillen@ywcaww.org. 

Pictured, from top left to bottom right: Maria Dorothy Padua from YWCA Secunderabad, India, Lara Khammash from YWCA Palestine, Michelle Mpho Tehedy from YWCA South Africa, Yvonne Anyango Ogollah from YWCA Kisumu, Kenya, Amara Killen from YWCA Walla Walla, USA, Runyararo Tembani from YWCA Zimbabwe, Latto Catherine Fred Tartisio from YWCA South Sudan, Angela (Zih-Han) Liu from YWCA Taipei, Taiwan, Nsreen Habet from YWCA Palestine, Annie Kumar from YWCA Secunderabad, India