Weekly LEAP SessionsWelcome to our weekly LEAP sessions!
Bantams (Tuesdays) Juniors (Wednesdays) Intermediates (Fridays) Seniors (Weekends) Alumni (Weekends) Each week brings on new challenges and ways to engage our girls through meaningful discussions and interactive activities to tackle our four pillars of Leadership, Empowerment, Action and Purpose. We would like to thank our incredible mentors who volunteer their time so selflessly and to Face of Today Foundation for their partnership and their incredible youth resource centre as our home base! ROOTING FOR HERRooting for HER is a Girls Who LEAP mental health empowerment initiative funded through the Canadian Women's Foundation. ROOTING FOR HER derives from imageries of seeds planted in deep soil, just waiting to take root and grow. Some take months, years, decades and centuries to grow into maturity while weathering through hard times and storms. The same can be said for our youth as they navigate through life challenges and transitions. How deeply rooted and equipped they are with navigation tools to emerge through struggles are key to their holistic welfare.
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STRONGHERIn partnership with The Vancouver Basketball Foundation™, STRONGHER™ is an inclusive strength program for self-identifying young women. Each session will encourage confidence and competence in every aspect of strength training, with the long-term goal to inspire a life-long passion for holistic active wellness. In a supportive and safe female-identified environment, the girls will challenge themselves physically and mentally, while developing confidence and leadership skills. Huge shout out to Megan for always leading by example!
GIRLS WHO PLAYGirls Who PLAY (Passion for Lifelong Athletics in Youth) is a pilot initiative through Britannia Centre and Heritage Canada under the Gender Equity in Sport program. We aim to promote a lifelong passion for athletics in our LEAP girls by introducing various sports like archery, basketball, boxing, dragon boat, skating, soccer, swimming, ultimate, volleyball, wheelchair basketball as well as provide National Coaching Certification Program training and mentorship opportunities for our senior LEAP girls! Thank you to all our NCCP coaches in each of our different sports!
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VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMENIn collaboration with REACH Community Health Centre, we have been facilitating a Violence Against Women and Girls group. The evenings always begin with a sit-down, family meal. We explore hard and important topics with this incredible group of youth, including: consent, myths and facts about sexualized violence, healthy ways of expressing anger, social media, healthy relationships and gender-based violence. Thank you to our guest facilitators for sharing their lived experiences and helping us create a safe space for our girls.
MENTORSHIPOur Girls Who LEAP mentors play a key role in each and every one of our youth. Our tri-mentoring framework has seen great success in connecting youth, adults and elders in our program. We are deeply grateful for our support network and partnerships that have allowed our youth to thrive each and every day. Hands up to our incredible volunteer mentors who give up their time so selflessly.
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou - |
Elders Craft CircleOn the first Weds of each month and on every holiday celebrations, GWL joins our lovely elders at the AML for craft circles, cultural sharing, drumming sessions, story telling and many more!
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StreetStoreEvery winter break, GWL partners up with Employ to Empower and their annual StreetStore pop-up tents to help serve our DTES community by handing out food, hot chocolate and warm clothes!
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Holiday Toiletry KitsHuge thank you to our incredible RiiSE partners at the Fairmont Waterfront for contributing to our toiletry kits campaign. With their support, we were able to put together over 300 kits for local women!
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Navigating Our Leadership Compass We kicked off the new year by navigating our leadership compass, focusing on all aspects of decision making. What would happen if we made decisions based on what we think versus how we feel? How can our values guide our decision making? How does making commitments run parallel to accountability in our life? How do we manage good and bad outcomes from our expectations? What impact would our decisions make on one self, family, friends and community?
Huy chexw to our amazing volunteer mentors who helped guide our breakout group discussions and challenged our LEAP girls to step out of their comfort zones all weekend long! We were also thrilled to welcome the Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week mentorship program! |
Life Bucks Empowerment WeekendWants versus needs, banking basics, credit cards, housing in Vancouver, paycheques and deductions. The Girls Who LEAP team dove deep into the world of financial literacy in our Life Bucks EMPOWERMENT Weekend. Each participant with their own LEAP Life Bucks cash earned from our Random Acts of Kindness month. So we spent, we saved, we invested, and of course we played a lot of games along the way.
Thank you to our incredible volunteer mentors for their storytelling and insight into real-life finances, our volunteer financial experts for sharing their knowledge, to Alternative Creative Studios for allowing us to use their gorgeous space and to the Vancouver Basketball Foundation for snapping great photos along the way! |
Everyday LEADersThank you Hootsuite for allowing us to use your amazing space to kick off our first POWER weekend this year. Your creative social space was the perfect place for us to tackle what it looks like to be an everyday LEADer within our school, social and family circles through communication - both live in person and online! Hands up to Elder Gertie, Amanda and Eva for sharing their experiences with us.
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Empowerment Fashion ShowOur Girls Who LEAP were eager to hit the runway and put their own empowerment twist to the fashion show after our weekend breakout sessions. Special shoutout to Joleen Mitton (Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week), Tracey Pincott and Rachel Kapsalis (Vetrina Moda) for their production expertise.. Thank you PAFNW for sponsoring our Longhouse space at the Native Education College.
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Positive ACTionsWhat a way to end our spring break holidays! We packed up 60 girls and 10 mentors for a jam packed 3-days 2-night POWER weekend at Zajac Ranch. From horseback riding to archery to roasting s'mores around the camp fire, our girls talked about what positive actions look like in their daily lives between healthy to unhealthy relationships, circles of responsibility from self to community to humanity and how accountability translates into the real world! Huy chexw to our truly selfless mentors for creating priceless memories for our girls! You are all one-of-a-kind!
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Purpose: Why We Do What We Do?Our last POWER session was held on the May long weekend just across the street at Alternate Creative Studios. We challenged the girls to think about the reasons why they do what they do! Looking back at the previous three pillars of leadership, empowerment and action, how can they purposefully make a difference in their own community? Our guest speaker, Toni Gladstone, shared her inspiration spoken words titled Why Do You Keep Going? and each of the girls worked in groups to respond back in their own words. - see blog for their pieces. The latter half was spent on a community challenge: how can they creatively serve their community with a roll of loonies?
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