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Since my first semester on campus, I have been a mentor with the Tufts Chapter of Strong Women, Strong Girls.  Essentially, this means that each week, I travel to a school in the Somerville-Medford area with two other Tufts mentors and work with a group of 3rd-5th grade girls.  We talk about everything from stereotypes to hair to careers.  As the SWSG website states, "Strong Women Strong Girls empowers girls to imagine a broader future though a curriculum grounded on female role models delivered by college women mentors, who are themselves mentored by professional women."

When I began my first session of mentoring, I thought that this idea of "mutual cycles of empowerment" was just talk.  I believed that though I would empower the girls and help them work on their leadership skills, they wouldn't have a large effect on me because I was already empowered!  Little did I know that the girls I mentor would truly shape my outlook on life.

The girls I mentor are growing up in a different world than what I knew.  While my friends and I messaged on AIM, these 21st century girls use Snapchat, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and every other form of social media that you could think of.  This means that there are more and more sources from which they can receive potentially harmful information about the world around them.  While this worries me, I also realize that it is an inevitable step in the technological advancement of the world.  All I can do to help is prepare the girls to deal with what they encounter.  Aside from these technological differences in our growing-up experiences, the girls also encounter different stressors than those I personally dealt with.  

My girls are strong.  One takes school-funded food home to her family on the weekends because her family cannot afford to purchase food.  Another girl lives in an apartment that is shared with four other families.  Yet, every Friday afternoon when I walk into the SWSG classroom, they greet me with smiles, hugs, and stories.  At the start of every session, we all sit in a circle and share roses and thorns - roses are good things that have happened to us this week, and thorns are not so good things.  As my girls share their roses and thorns, I am impressed and amazed by the joy that such small experiences bring them.  Their child-like exuberance is something that empowers me and a trait that I strive to have.  Their passion for life and laughing makes me light up.  Their silly yet often extremely insightful questions cause me to realize that these girls are smart and observant as hell.

Though they may only be about 10 years old, my SWSG girls teach me new things every week and make me a better, more empowered person.