Verna Price
President, The Power of People Leadership Institute
Robbinsdale, Minnesota

Positive Change I'm Working to Achieve
I want to see motivated and inspired urban youth that value education as a core ingredient for success in life. I wrestle daily with finding the answers to how to make that dream come true. In 2004, I founded Girls in Action in response to a local Minneapolis high school that was experiencing a significant increase in the number of female students, mostly African American, getting suspended, fighting, joining gangs, and failing academically. Like many urban youth, particularly urban youth of color, they had disengaged, given up and/or walked away from k-12 education.

I started Girls in Action to engage the girls, during the school day, in an interactive curriculum based on the core principles of personal power, leadership, service-learning and career development. Women mentors are trained to deliver the curriculum while giving the girls a vision for what it means to be a positive woman leader in their community.

I believe that girls are powerful and that when we teach them how to positively use that power, they will use it to change their life for the good. In the process, they will apply that power to service-learning and begin to create positive change in their community and world. I see a future where our Girls make positive social decisions, successfully complete high school on time, and go to college without first becoming teenage mothers.

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