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All Kinds of Girls (AKOG) is a mentoring program that aims to build self-esteem and self-confidence in girl’s ages 9 to 12. AKOG is run through the Women’s Studies Program at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts by female Clark undergraduate students. The program provides a safe space for the girls to use their expansive capabilities to express themselves creatively. |
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About AKOG
AKOG aims to:
- Help girls recognize their own strength by providing them
with a safe space to express and maintain their true voice.
- Expose girls to different life options by building a bridge
between girls from Worcester and young women from the Women's
Studies community.
- Nurture the socio-emotional development of girls, by
supporting the self-assurance girls naturally possess as
preadolescents.
- Foster understanding by bringing together girls and women
from diverse class, ethnic, and racial backgrounds.
AKOG was started in 1998 in response to a community desire to create a space where generations of females could foster positive growth through mentorship. The vision for this space was to provide a regular place where girls could openly explore their personal and political identities. Through positive interactions with others, the program aims to support girls in developing a solid sense of self while simultaneously fostering a sense of self as important and powerful contributors to the formation of the evolving social world. AKOG is extremely rewarding for both girls and mentors. Participants see amazing differences in the expression, confidence and thoughts of both themselves and other girls and mentors.
Description of AKOG
Each year about 50 courageous girls from the city of Worcester in Massachusetts attend AKOG along with about 16 to 20 female undergraduate Clark mentors. Registration forms for female participants are dispersed in 8 Worcester public schools throughout different areas of Worcester. Girls register for the program on a first come first serve basis. Clark student volunteers apply to be mentors early in the Clark school year.
Each week activities are planned around a theme. Themes include: culture day, beauty day, celebrating our differences and similarities day, wild and crazy fun day, women’s history day, team building day and voice day and visual arts day. Each theme is designed to invite girls to explore their own identity, their relationships with themselves and other girls, and to help them to become stronger, more active and knowledgeable members of society.
AKOG meets for 15 to 17 weeks during the Clark school year (except for Clark school breaks). AKOG begins in late October and typically ends in early to mid April. The first half of the year, the program focuses on creative writing, skits/improvisation, arts and crafts, games, and group discussions modeled around each weekly theme. During the second half of the year the girls are divided into small groups where they write, direct, and perform their own plays. The plays represent the spirit of AKOG and all that it stands for including portrayals of girls' lives today and positive images of girls and women.
Past play themes have included the following:
- The AKOG TV show
- Workers rights, women and equal pay for equal work
- Different girls coming together and finding that they have more things in common than they thought
- Elderly women looking back on what life was like as girls
- Women’s history--American women fighting for the right to vote in the early 20th century
- Girls making fun of each other at a sleepover party
- Disputes between “popular” girls and “geeks”
- The AKOG Academy where girls tell their classmates all about the women that inspire them
- Girls dealing with issues of racism and prejudice at school and in their circle of friends
- Supermodel girls who insist on being themselves and not dieting like their manager wants them to
- Girls traveling back in time to see how girls lived their lives in the past
AKOG @ Clark University is sponsored in 2007-2008 by the United Way of Central Massachusetts' Women's Initiative.
©2006 All Kinds Of Girls / Clark University Department Of Women's Studies — All Rights Reserved
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Additional Resources
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