Empowering Through Economic Advancement
We accomplish our mission via our Women’s Resource Center and Women's Economic Empowerment Program, which includes Getting Ahead, Moving Ahead and Staying Ahead.
Women's Resource Center
YWCA Great Lakes Bay Region offers a variety of programs at our new Women’s Resource Center that focus on employability and education.
This service is provided by appointment and at no cost. YWCA staff can assist with:- Computer Literacy Skills
- Interviewing Skills
- Job Searching
Women's Economic Empowerment Program (WEEP) offers three ways for women to increase stability through focused programming, short and long term support and building relationships in the community.
Getting Ahead, is our comprehensive 11-week workshop offered to women struggling financially and involves a combination of self-examination, economic education and building eleven essential resources to increase overall stability in life. Moving Ahead is our 5-week financial literacy program based on curriculum by AllState Foundation to support women who have experienced domestic violence and are working towards financial stability and independence. Staying Ahead is our long term support program for women who are graduates of Moving Ahead and Getting Ahead which offers twice monthly group meetings, individual assistance, support with building resources and overall encouragement for the journey to increase overall stability.
"WEEP as an acronym for our Women's Economic Empowerment Program powerfully speaks to why this program is so vital for the Great Lakes Bay Region. Women have struggled for centuries to make ends meet, move through layers of glass ceiling that resist upward mobility, overcome challenge, and heal from various forms of hardship. To weep in the face of such struggle is not a weakness, it speaks to the strength that women hold, when they are working to hold it all together for themselves and those they love.
Our Women's Economic Empowerment Program honors the tears in the weeping of women past and current by listening to the struggles and needs of women in our communities, while offering clear, practical ways to meet those tears with hope, help, support, connection, information and resources which truly empower the individual." - Amy Phoenix, YWCA GLBR Program Director and Getting Ahead Program FacilitatorGetting Ahead
Getting Ahead participants study the patterns of economic class, debt-to-income ratio, hidden rules, language, family structures, and social capital. All participants leave the class with personal economic action plans for success and are eligible for an educational stipend.Getting Ahead curriculum creates the foundation for a new mindset for participants experiencing poverty. This 11-week workshop is followed with long term support services to assist participants with their economic action plan. These support services include case management, reinforcement of curriculum, employment and education resources and direct assistance.
The curriculum and action plans allow us to engage and empower women to transition out of the cycle of poverty into financial stability.