Pearls of Women Agenda

Pearls of Women Agenda (POWA) is a culturally relevant, intergenerational, gender-specific mentor initiative entitled What Girls Think & What Women Know: A National Dialogue.™ The POWA's milieu provides opportunities for girls to interact and dialogue with accomplished women of influence who are dedicated to the development of confident young women. The Agenda helps girls to meet the intellectual, social, emotional, and cultural challenges of the 21st century. As well as, provide guidance and constructive evaluation of girls' efforts toward leadership and self-efficacy, which affects every area of human endeavor. ​

The combined voices of both women and girls (with an emphasis on adolescents ages 12 -18) substantiates that authentic, wisdom-based dialogue, and mentor driven relationships that occur in safe nurturing, gender-specific environments, contribute greatly to the healthy development and life preparation of girls. 

POWA teaches girls and young women to model social responsibility, celebrate diversity, stimulate personal growth and character development.  POWA accentuates academic excellence, helps eradicate risk-taking behavior, and encourages girls to set the highest goals, values, and moral standards for themselves.  

The POWA curriculum consists of innovative, educational and issues driven life development skills seminars, workshops, and panel discussions. Through creative and positive intergenerational interaction, special events, inspirational, educational, and motivational dialogue. The curriculum is designed to bring awareness through education to potential life altering struggles and challenges today's girls face; as well as their aspirations. 

Confirmed by statistics these are some of the challenges girls face: ​

• teen pregnancy
• peer pressure
• bullying
• a barrage of negative images and messages
• poor self esteem
• obesity
• unhealthy lifestyles
• problems resulting from absent fathers 
• teen suicide
• adult-level everyday responsibilities, worries and relationships
• sexual abuse  
• sexually transmitted diseases
• domestic violence                                                         
• HIV/AIDS    
• anxiety
  

These struggles and challenges are the impetus for the Pearls of Women Agenda (POWA), and why it is our mission to empower girls for a lifetime through the What Girls Think - What Women Know: A National Dialogue panel sessions. The Agenda allows both the girls and women to play important roles and mutually benefit. The Pearls of Women Agenda (POWA) gives young women the rare opportunity to acquire valuable knowledge that will positively influence their futures through the involvement with its sister program POWABASE 360.  POWABASE 360 is comprised of the women who hold membership status, and are deemed the Pearls of Women Agenda's base of power. The POWABASE 360 is an acronym for Pearls of Women Agenda Business and Social Empowerment.

Girls learn from the POWABASE 360: 

• there are no limitations to what they can accomplish and become in life.
• new and exciting life paths for reaching future goals including various academic, career, entrepreneurial, and financial literacy opportunities to combat economic inequity. 
  
• what their rights are on many fronts and how to understand them.
  
• to develop critical thinking skills.
  
• a command for and to cultivate respect.
  
• to develop individual creative self-expression. 
  
• social etiquette development.  
  

POWABASE 360 is a membership based social and business network initiative reserved for a diversity of the country's women influencers from a cross-section of businesses and industries who are passionate about philanthropy, goodwill, and the empowerment of America's girls and young women. While empowering girls through their time, talent, and resources; POWABASE 360 offers opportunities for a diverse group of women to collaborate, build and maintain an exciting, strong, influential, purposeful social and business base of power and influence, and philanthropy with women of like minds while aligning with a specific cause.

The dynamic women of the POWABASE 360 while empowering girls, also learn from the girls that participate in the POWA program. They learn from listening closely to adolescent girls as they speak honestly in their girl-led dialogue about their lives from their perspectives, as they challenge prevailing notions and attitudes about who they are in America, and who others think they are.