Last weekend, CAMBA's Family Support program hosted a well-received Phenomenal Girls' Symposium for about 70 girls from central Brooklyn. Girls and young women ages 11 to 18 attended workshops on body image and confidence, goal setting and career path identification, family planning and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Panelists from a variety of backgrounds and career levels answered questions and provided a real-life perspective on lessons from the day's workshops. Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke and Vanessa Vales-Lewis, Education Director at the Health Science Academy, were just a few of the day's many outstanding guests and speakers. (A complete list of panelists is included in the agenda, which can be found here.) The attendees came away from the symposium with a wealth of knowledge on just how many possibilities exist for phenomenal girls like them.

According to Venetta Vanhorne, Assistant Program Manager in Family Support and the event's planner, there is a serious need for new and innovative educational health programs to reach local young women. Ms. Vanhorne said that her team's data collection shows higher rates of pregnancy and STIs within this particular community, as well as lower rates of college enrollment; her team used that data to drive the themes of the workshop. "How can we help these young women stay on track with their education and help them get on their way to entering and staying in college?" she said of the program's greater goals.

Ms. Vanhorne reports that plans exist to build on the success of this event and expand the Phenomenal Girls' Symposium to the national level through work with the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls. "We want to scale this up so we can really get the information out to more girls," Ms. Vanhorne said.