Service Learning Proposal

Service Learning Proposal for Young Women’s Leadership Program
By: Valerie Tindall
February 14, 2012
Meredith Tweed
WST 3371

Community Partner Profile:
Community Partner: Young Women’s Leadership Program
Address: University of Central Florida Building: CNH411
Young Women Leaders Program
4000 Central Florida Blvd.
P.O. Box 161994
Orlando, FL 32816
407-823-6502
Contacts: Meredith Tweed, Maria Roman and Emily Vrotsos
Community Partner Mission Statement: The Young Women Leaders Program is a mentoring program sponsored by the UCF Women’s Studies Program. YWLP originated at the University of Virginia, and UCF launched the program in the Orlando community. YWLP promotes middle school girls’ leadership abilities, pairing collegiate women with middle school girls. In mentoring pairs and small groups of Big and Little Sisters, participants focus on learning competence and autonomy, independent thinking, empowerment, self-esteem, and encouraging girls to think about their futures. Mentoring sessions run in the fall and the spring (http://womensstudies.cah.ucf.edu/ywlp/index.php).
Political or Social Basis for Organization: Currently YWLP has partnered with their local community and the national AAUW to create a peer advocacy campaign to help students to empower themselves and others to stop bullying and forms of aggression among their peers. This project is called “leading Out Loud (LOL)” and it works by teaching the YWLP Little Sisters to become peer advocates at their middle schools. Ultimately this project will result in a field trip to UCF where the Little Sisters will work with UCF faculty, students and their Big Sisters to host anti-bullying workshops for local fifth grade boys and girls.
General Needs of Organization: YWLP needs students to volunteer with their Slam Dunk for School Safety basketball tournament/fundraiser on February 18th. The goal of the tournament is to raise $2,000 so that the LOL project and field trip are free for all the students. This event will include a basketball tournament, raffle of donated items, a concession stand, bake sale and entertainment.

The Proposal:
Memorandum
TO: Meredith L. Tweed
FROM: Valerie Tindall
DATE: February 14, 2012

Need for volunteers for the Young Women’s Leadership Program:
According to the website Stomp out Bullying; 1 out of 4 teens are bullied and 1 out of 5 teens admit to being a bully or bullying someone, also as many as 160,000 students stay home on any given day because they're afraid of being bullied (http://stompoutbullying.com). These are troubling statistics, especially now with the addition of cyber-bullying on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. During a mentoring session in September 2011, YWLP Little Sisters shared some of their experiences involving “physical fights, graffiti, cruel language and bullying on social networking sites”.
To help with this, YWLP has partnered with the national AAUW and their community to create the “leading Out Loud (LOL)” Campaign; which will help students to empower themselves and others to stop bullying among their peers. The YWLP Little Sisters are taught to become peer advocates at their local middle schools and will lead an anti-bullying day at their middle school in March. The project ends with a field trip to UCF, where the Little Sisters will host workshops for local fifth grade boys and girls.
To help raise money for the “LOL” project, YWLP will host the Slam Dunk for School Safety basketball tournament on February 18th, 2012. The plan is to raise an additional $2,000 so that the “LOL “project and field trip are free for all the students.

Plan Proposal:
Throughout the semester I will be helping YWLP work on their national AAUW grant on girl’s leadership to stop bullying. The main event I will be working on is the Slam Dunk for School Safety Basketball Tournament, which takes place Saturday February 18th, aside from the basketball tournament this event will have a raffle, concession stand, bake sale and, entertainment. For this event I will be trying to find donations for the raffle from local businesses and also trying to find food items for the concession stand. I will also be helping put together the donation baskets and any other little items that need to be done for the event.

Rationale for Women’s Studies:
Bullying among young people today is becoming more and more prevalent and most of them are too afraid or embarrassed to speak up about it. So for YWLP to create a program that empowers these young people to become peer advocates against bullying and aggressive behavior in school is what leadership and Women’s Studies is all about. In Srilatha Batliwala’s article Feminist Leadership for Social Transformation; she says that most of us are unable to leave behind the early experiences of powerlessness that damage our self-esteem and disable us from using our power within constructively, we clearly bring to organizations, the biases, conditioning, experiences with power, and other psychic baggage, as well as our aspirations, high minded goals, and good intentions (p.42). This being said we have all dealt with bullying in some shape or form when we were younger, whether we were the bully or the one being bullied, so we can take our experiences and help these young girls to become empowered in speaking out against bullying and empowering their own classmates to stop aggressive behavior taking place in schools.

Action:
I have already met with Meredith Tweed and Emily Vrotsos about the needs for this fundraising project and have discussed my responsibilities for this event. I have been given a donation letter and forms to go around to local businesses to see if they would like to donate items to the raffle or concession stand.

Timeline:
I will deliver the completed project on approximately April 19th, 2012. Please note that this date may fluctuate according to additional activities that become available throughout the semester.
February: weeks of the 6th-18th, go around to local businesses and see if they would like to donate items, keep in touch with them through email and calling.
February 17th-help set up donation baskets and any other miscellaneous items needed for the tournament.
February 18th: Slam Dunk for School Safety Basketball tournament
Word Count: 1,105
Works Cited
Love Our Children USA. Stomp Out Bullying. 2011. 14 2 2012 .
Batliwala, Srilatha. "Feminist Leadership For Social Transformation: Clearing the Conceptual Cloud." Crea (2011): 66. Print.
UCF CAH: Young Women Leaders Program: Schools." UCF: CAH: Women's Studies Program: Mentoring Programs for Faculty. UCF Women's Studies Program. Web. 12 Feb. 2012. .