RAFHA INC., CEYW – New Website!

admin — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:20:39 +0000

Welcome to the New Website!

RAFHA Inc., The Center For Empowering Young Women (CEYW) website has recently been redesigned to better serve our clients and our supporters/donors.

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CEYW Approach:

We begin and end with the whole young woman. Traditionally, nonprofits and service providers have focused on single categories like disease prevention. At RAFHA Inc, The Center for Empowering Young Women, we take a holistic approach. We address the various issues young women are facing and address all needs such as political and legal education, therapy, health and wellness services, employment needs, safe dwelling issues and more.

Please enjoy this site and share the CEYW goals and mission with others.

More About CEYW:

Goal: Our goal is to create a city-wide environment where young women are involved in all major decisions that impact their lives — using their ideas to find new solutions to old problems. This model means that young women who were formerly incarcerated or working in the street economies have the support to become leaders, policymakers, researchers, employers, and activists. As a result, we have created a place for young women to come together, heal from past experiences, dream and achieve their visions for the future through leadership development, youth organizing, employment training, and health and wellness.

Objectives: We believe that every young woman deserves opportunities to learn and grow. We believe young women need a caring and compassionate environment in which to learn about themselves, to acquire new skills, and to advocate for their needs and those of their sisters. We know young women need a safe space where confidentiality is ensured. We believe that in order to recognize their worth, young women need to be supported in their efforts to grow to become stable and centered women in control of their decisions.

Taking a holistic approach, we work with the young woman to develop legal and courtroom self-advocacy plans, with help from her parents or guardians, other community-based agencies, the faith-based community, the Public Defender’s office and, in some cases, the District Attorney’s office and the presiding judge. Our aim is always to develop a comprehensive alternative to incarceration that best serves the needs of the young woman.

Our programs: We encourage young women to move beyond survival and become leaders and advocates for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated young women. Although young women and girls represent almost 30% of the total juvenile arrests, they have access to a fraction of the prevention and alternative to incarceration programs available to boys. Nationwide, they receive only 2% of services. Because of the lack of alternative programs, jobs, and housing, young women and girls find themselves locked up or on probation longer for lesser crimes than their male counterparts.

Our programs offer young women a way to reduce recidivism and the street economy and into self-sufficiency, wholeness, and advocacy. We understand that a huge component of this work is self-care and healing which mean many different things to the young women. Each of our programs promotes wellness and healthier living.