We are thrilled to formally announce our Young Mothers @ The Margin campaign, which pairs advocacy on behalf of young mothers and the voices of young women raising children and working to reach their full potential.
Check out some of the videos below, and go to the website to find out how you can create your own video. We’re anxious to hear the voices of many people help us focus attention on young mothers at the margin.
We’ve been thinking and talking a lot about a recent U.K. study of teenage parenthood. In this study, researchers actually posit that teenaged parents may actually be more motivated to turn their lives around when they have a baby. Rather than attacking teen pregnancy, the researchers say, perhaps we should be working with teen mothers who are ready to make the needed changes to improve their lives, and the lives of their children.
Crittenton agencies who work with young mothers every day would probably agree that becoming a parent at a young age is a classic cloud-with-a-silver-lining opportunity. That’s why they work with girls and young women to give them the skills and support they need to empower themselves, and teach them the valuable life lesson that facing-and dealing with-something that looks disastrous is actually a golden opportunity for a better life.
Are you on Facebook? Become a fan of FMYI–one of the coolest new technology companies around–by January 15, and the company will donate $1 to The National Crittenton Foundation. Click here!
This money helps our 27 agencies in 24 states, who are working directly with girls and young women at the margins of the American dream. This holiday season, consider taking 30 seconds to give towards a brighter future for American’s girls and young women.
Hello, my name is Charese Jamison. You might have read about my life in past letters from The Foundation. My early life was a lot like that of Precious. I survived a lot of experiences like those depicted in the movie, things most people can’t imagine. Things like incest, sexual abuse and a mother who was absent more than present and much more. I too felt stupid, unloved and unworthy.
I became pregnant at 16 and was scared and alone. But a teacher helped me find my way to Crittenton Services Inc. in Wheeling, West Virginia and today, I’m thriving and so is my 15-year old daughter. I have a great job, an amazing daughter and this summer I’ll graduate from college. I’m happy, love life and see a bright future ahead for my daughter and I. Read More »
From The Grio news site, a great story about Inwood House in New York City and the young women they help. We are proud that Inwood House is a member of the Crittenton family of agencies, one of 27 Crittenton agencies nationwide in 24 states.
Executive Director Linda Lausell Bryant said it best about the young women they serve: “They may not have had the best start in life, but that doesn’t limit how far they can go.”
Time to unmask what they really are: in Baltimore, the City Council recently voted to make “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” post disclaimers about the services they do and don’t provide.
The following thoughtful (and thought-provoking) comment was posted following Sunday’s Portland, Oregonian opinion piece by Jeannette Pai-Espinosa called “Too Man Girls, Young Women Keep Terrible Secret.” We repost it here on our blog because it speaks to the ongoing trauma of child sexual abuse victims who are silenced and ignored by society.
We’d like to thank this commenter for speaking up–and out–about changing intergenerational patterns of abuse.
Thank you Jeannette, for speaking on behalf of many of us who carry this secret behind the veil of functional, middle class lives. We are both men and women – girls and boys – rich and poor – who live next door to you. We sit across the table from you in meetings or serve you your meals — we are attorneys and plumbers and bar tenders and businesspeople, and yes, some of us are on welfare. I believe the reported statistics that have been quoted here are under counts. No one ever counted me because my grandfather was a doctor and my father a prominent businessman. They didn’t fit the common idea of who might do such awful things to a little girl. And I’m not asking for anyone’s sympathy or handouts — just your acknowledgement and your promise to help make sure that what happened to me doesn’t happen to any girl or woman you know.
From the Sunday Oregonian, a powerful piece by Jeannette Pai-Espinosa on the marginalizing of girls and young women who have been abused. Here’s a short excerpt:
Violence against girls and women is an epidemic in this country, and while we often demonstrate concern for the way women are treated in Third World countries, somehow the majority of Americans just don’t want to contemplate the same issue within our borders.
