Neither Cynthia Brubaker nor Rebecca Fricke are strangers to women’s movements. Both have been presidents of the Amherst’s League of Women Voters chapter. But following the 2016 Women’s March, they were inspired to engage more with younger generations.
“We began to talk about how we could reach out to young women,” Brubaker recalled of conversations with Fricke, “and teach them leadership skills so they become the voices of the future — so they get involved in the political process.”
The result of their brainstorming conversations: a leadership workshop for young women in 10, 11 and 12th grade at Amherst Regional High School. “1-2-3 Girls LEAD,” they titled it.
Fricke and Brubaker hoped to target girls who had leadership potential but weren’t already in leadership positions. Teaming up with Elizabeth Haygood, an ARHS health and physical education teacher, they were able to advertise the program to teachers and other staff throughout the school who nominated students.
The response from teachers was overwhelming — over 100 girls were nominated, according to Haygood.
Last fall, 23 girls spent the day at the training working on public speaking, talking about social justice issues and hearing from two speakers — including a state legislator.
State representative Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, gave a keynote speech, talking about her experience as a leader and her path to politics. And she invited the students to visit her office in Boston sometime to share their goals and visions.
“The girls didn’t realize that someone like Mindy would want to hear them,” Fricke said. “To have a future state representative tell them their thoughts were important and that she wanted to continue to hear from them when she was elected — that was really powerful.”
Anastasia Ordonez, Amherst School Committee Chair and founder of a communications business, spoke about how to effectively campaign and communicate messages.
At the workshop, the students worked to brainstorm a list of issues they were interested in addressing, and after narrowing them down, they discussed how to confront them back at school. The group quickly came up with a long list of concerns, including racism, immigration, climate change, homelessness and food security, Fricke and Brubaker said. “They did not need much prompting,” Fricke said.
“Wow, we got a whole roomful of potential leaders,” Brubaker thought while working with the group. She was impressed by the passion they showed for issues and eagerness to organize. “I came away feeling very positive of the future,” she said.
What stuck out to Haygood was the bonding between students. “The most memorable takeaway was the girls from various backgrounds working together,” she said.
Fricke agreed. “It sort of naturally happened over the course of the morning, they grew to trust each other more and talked to each other,” she said.
The fall program was a pilot of sorts. Brubaker and Fricke hope to reach more young women and are considering expanding into other high schools next fall.
Back at school, Haygood has noticed the students stepping up more — like in the case of the student who spoke out against anti-semitism after the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
“The one that stands out the most is Eva Weintraub making a powerful speech over the loudspeaker directly after the attack on the synagogue in Pennsylvania,” Haygood recalled.
Beneath the individual portraits at the top of the page, Weintraub and other students share what they took away from the program and their leadership goals.
Greta Jochem is a staff writer at the Daily Hampshire Gazette where she covers the environment and education. She can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com