The Bold Futures Mentoring Program helps create mentoring relationships for girls ages 9-14. Mentoring helps girls increase self-efficacy, improve social skills, and learn how to create healthy communities.

This year, girls in the Bold Futures Program participated in the creation of their own community action project. Not to be confused with a community service project, a community action project is an activity that can increase understanding and empowerment of a community by working with the community to solve issues within. The community action project leaves a lasting impact on the area.

The girls were in charge of picking which communities they wanted to focus on and what issues they wanted to address. With the help of their mentors, they planned and created an array of activities to combat the issues they found.

One of the two groups at Clay Chalkvile visited a retirement home and talked to some of the residents. From their trip, they made a plan to create a pamphlet on the importance of young people respecting and interacting with older populations.

The other group from Clay Chalkvile saw health as an issue within their after school program. They created a presentation on the amount of sugar found in the drinks. They then creatively presented their findings to over 100 other children and passed out over 120 water bottles as a healthy alternative.

At the Girls Inc. Crestwood Center, one of the mentoring group felt that littering was a problem. This group created a fictional book warning of the effects of littering. They worked together to illustrate, write, and bind the book.

Girls Inc. of Central Alabama is so proud of the creativity and initiative that all of our mentoring girls have had while participating in this project. It was great to see the girls grow more comfortable with research and public speaking as they presented their projects to others.