 Empowering Communities Helping Ourselves (ECHO) is a grassroots, community-based, non-profit agency. Our mission is to improve the quality of life for low income residents of Montgomery, Alabama. Our strategies are designed to help people find pathways out of poverty. We offer after school programs, youth leadership and development programs, entrepreneurial classes, job readiness classes, and youth gardening.
“Inner-city girls learn about love, friendship”
By Kenneth Mullinax - The Montgomery Advertiser
A "girls only" club for inner-city youth meets every Wednesday at Harrison Elementary School to help build the girls' self-esteem and let them know there are alternatives to violence.
The group is called Girl's Circle, is free of charge and is sponsored by the ECHO Foundation (Empowering Communities Helping Ourselves) a non-profit group that serves youth and their families in Montgomery. The group of 11 girls, ages 6-12, meets during the summer and is purposely kept small so it can use intimacy to foster friendship and dialogue, said Aieda Harris, director of ECHO and the leader of Girl's Circle.
"The purpose of our group is to teach these girls that violence isn't normal and we can all work out our problems with words rather than with knives or guns," Harris said.
On Wednesday the girls discussed how important love and friendship is to have in their daily lives and each one played a game of "blind-man's bluff" that was intended to foster trust and cooperation, Harris said.
This week's meeting was 11-year-old Shaquolya Jackson's first time in the group.
She said it was so enjoyable that she plans to attend all the remaining meetings until the club adjourns for the summer on August 3.
Jackson said she really enjoyed being allowed to read the Bible verse from First Corinthians that the group studied for the first 30 minutes of its three-hour session that ends with lunch.
“This verse is about the subject of love,” Jackson whispered.
She beamed as Harris asked her to recite the verse.
She loudly spoke out the words carefully: "Love is patient; love is kind; love does not envy..."
She said it was a great lesson, especially when the group substituted the word "friendship" for the word "love."
"I learned today that it's cool to have friends you can trust and love," Jackson said.
"I just wish folks in my neighborhood could learn this stuff so we could all play together outside again and not be scared of being killed in drive-bys," she said.
All Donations, large or small, are appreciated.
Empowering Communities Helping Ourselves
P.O. Box 9651
Montgomery, AL 36108
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