PowHerful

There is still time to attend this year’s PowHERful Foundation Gala "Transforming Lives. Creating Leaders" hosted by Tamron Hall. We're honored to celebrate the life and impact of our supporters like Hearst Television, Sunanda Saxena of IBM, and of course our scholars! You can join us on Thursday, June 13, 2019 at Tribeca Rooftop in New York City.
Info & tickets at www.powherful.org

Pow(h)er Awards Dinner

Mentoring The Next Generation Of Women Leaders

Recently, Soledad O'Brien was formally recognized for her passionate work by the state of New York. At the 2018 PowHERful Summit, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins presented O’Brien proclaiming July 14 as the annual PowHERful day in New York. PowHERful is O’Brien’s education-focused foundation that works to get girls in and through college.

A large number of the PowHERful scholars are first-generation college-bound students from desperate poverty. But O’Brien points out, “Your family can be middle class and you still not have any money, especially if you have kids you’re trying to put through college. Some girls just really need mentoring.” She relates the story of a young woman whose mother was killed in the Newton School shooting and her father had brain cancer. “He reached out to me and basically said, there are people in our community who will pay for my daughter’s education but I really need her to be mentored. So we made sure she was connected to the right people and opportunities.”

 

The PowHERful Foundation connects with young women at the collegiate and internship stage before their real professional lives begin. Yet the reality is you can provide all the opportunities in the world for people but it doesn’t mean they will succeed in their pursuits, especially if they are not used to understanding how certain systems work. I wondered aloud about this with O’Brien. She says she encourages soft skills, and the central message she gives young women is that success is really up to you as an individual. It doesn’t mean one has to do it by oneself but she teaches the girls that ultimately they are responsible for their success. She believes that today’s generation of young women need a lot of the same skills that previous generations have needed.

SOURCE: Here's How Soledad O'Brien Is Mentoring The Next Generation Of Women Leaders - via Essence

PowHerful

Soledad O'Brien started her Starfish Media Group as a way to control the kinds of projects she could work on as a journalist.

She was inspired by an Evangelical story:

Countless starfish have washed ashore on a beach and are dying off. A little boy is picking them up and tossing them back into the ocean in the hope they’ll survive. A man walks by and asks him why he’s doing something so futile.
“There are hundreds,” he points out. “What difference will it make?”
The boy picks up another starfish, throws it into the sea and says: “It will make a difference to that one.”

And so she created the Soledad O'Brien and Brad Raymond Starfish Foundation with her husband in 2011 in order to provide funds and resources for student scholars with the idea that helping one young woman can cause a ripple effect throughout her family, friends, and community - transform lives, one girl at a time.

Then, her PowHERful Foundation Summit Series began in 2012 in New York City as an annual, free daylong conference for high school- and college-aged young women focusing on educational, professional, and personal development.

In 2017, the Starfish Foundation became the PowHERful Foundation to better reflect the empowerment message they want to provide young women all across the country opportunities.

Soledad O’Brien Hosts Empowerment Conference for Young Women

When Soledad O’Brien was in college, she had a mentor who helped guide her toward success , and also influenced her subsequent decision to provide similar support for other young women.

“I had one phenomenal mentor while I was in college who taught me the tools of my trade, inspired me to want to be a journalist and most importantly gave me the confidence to navigate a tough profession,” O’Brien said. “It transformed me and leads me to believe that this kind of support for young women is vital in helping them achieve their goals.”

O’Brien and her husband, Brad Raymond, founded in 2011 what is now called the PowHERful Foundation with a primary mission to get young minority women from low-income families to and through college by providing financial assistance, mentorship and other support.

The foundation holds PowHERful Enrichment Conferences across the country, the most recent being in Jacksonville, Florida “to create an opportunity for girls across the country who have limited means to get all the resources they need to get through college and into the workforce... all the things that parents and professionals might offer a young woman of greater means.”

The Jacksonville event is is one of seven announced for 2017. The next one is May 13 in Atlanta.

To donate, apply for a scholarship or get more information about the PowHERful Foundation, contact the foundation at 134 W. 26th St., Suite 1150, New York, NY 10001 or go to powherful.org.