justice for black girls AMBASSADORS PROGRAM
We believe in eNGAGING BLACK GIRLS AS THEORISTS OF THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE.
Justice for Black Girl Ambassadors Program is a social justice education program that engages Black girls ages 13-18 across the country in the academic and policy work that centers Black girlhood. The JBGAP serves Black girls’ needs for protection, safety, and belonging through a holistic culture of care coupled with Black feminist curriculum, grassroots collaborations, and academic partnerships.
Most significantly the JBG Ambassadors Program nurtures community & sisterhood among Black girls across the nation. The JBGAP combats the carceral and exclusionary academic spaces Black girls too often experience affirming their genius through curriculum rooted in care.
This curriculum centers Black girls’ intersectional identities, honors their lived experience, and cultivates their ability to advocate against their abuse while advocating for spaces that center their liberation. Ambassadors respond by designing their own presentations and advocating within their communities to local and national stakeholders. This work centers Black girl innovation and allows students to operationalize curriculum in their own ways, using their own language, through their own creative expression. Namely, JBG Ambassadors have produced presentations on topics including but not limited to, “The Adultification & Criminalization of Black Girls”, “Colorism, Cultural Appropriation & Respectability” and “Black Girl Safekeeping, Healing & Liberation.” Ultimately this work positions Black girls as powerful civic leaders who are capable of dreaming and actualizing a more just world.
JBG ambassadors program HIGHLIGHTS:
Partnership with Dr. Monique Couvson (award winning author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools) inaugural PUSHOUT Youth Cohort
University presentations across the country including: Spelman, UC Berkeley, NYU, Columbia, Michigan State University
Organizations collaborations including: National Urban League, Girls for A Change, Me Too Movement, Girls for Gender Equity, NBJWI, The Children’s Partnership, EveryBlackGirl Inc., Black Girls Smile, Fund II Foundation
White House Roundtable for Girl Leaders
Digitally archived in Library of Congress under Protests Against Racism
Annual presentations during JBG National Conference alongside national stakeholders like past keynote speaker Dr. Nikki Giovanni
2023-2024 ambassadors program offerings:
Course Overview:
Over the course of 5 weeks, Black girls convene to create a sacred learning community rooted in liberated Black girlhood. This community centers Black girls’ intersectional identities, honors their lived experience, and cultivates their ability to advocate against their abuse while advocating for spaces that center their liberation. Ambassadors respond by designing their own presentations and advocating within their communities to local stakeholders. This work centers Black girl innovation and allows students to operationalize curriculum in their own ways, using their own language, through their own creative expression. Namely, JBG Ambassadors have produced presentations on topics including but not limited to, “The Adultification & Criminalization of Black Girls”, “Colorism, Cultural Appropriation & Respectability” and “Black Girl Safekeeping, Healing & Liberation.” Ultimately this work positions Black girls as powerful civic leaders who are capable of dreaming and actualizing a more just world.
Course Logistics:
Program runs July 9th- August 8th, meets Tuesdays & Thursdays | Time 11 PST 2 EST
Who can apply?
All Black girls ages 13-18 (middle and high school)
2021-2022 ambassadors program offerings:
We’re excited to be relaunching our 2021 Black Girl Birth Work Program for Summer 2022.
We can’t wait to convene another cohort of Black girls prepared to offer their brilliance, love, and power to the birth work and reproductive justice space.
We believe that Black girls and youth belong in every conversation about birth justice. Our curriculum (taught by certified Black women experts) is designed to equip Black girls with the tools to become birth work advocates and leaders.
Course Overview:
This is a 5 week educational series exploring processes related to natural uninterrupted childbirth. Instruction will be rooted in decolonized African American ancestral wisdom and will include the history of midwifery in America, reflection questions, focus groups, and opportunities to apply this knowledge. Students can expect to gain foundational knowledge in prenatal, pregnancy, and postpartum anatomy, the rights of child-bearers, evidence - based comfort measures, and strategies to advocate for the holistic wellness of Black birthers, with special focus on teenage birthers.
Course Logistics:
Program runs July 11th- August 10th, meets Mondays & Wednesdays | Time TBA
Who can apply?
Current JBG Ambassadors | All Black girls ages 14-21
Course Instructors:
Bria Bailey, MS, MTM
Bria is a double mastered former senior clinical researcher, survivor, certifying Doula, and dancer. Bria has over 10 years of clinical experience working in diverse clinical settings. She is currently working as a UX researcher, Maternal Experience Designer, and Birthworker with aspirations of becoming a Homebirth Midwife. Through her own journey, she identifies as a Healer whose purpose is to evolve in her own healing so that she may heal others in her community and beyond. She is a native of Memphis, TN and resides in The Bay Area, CA.
Tanyze Hill (Mentoring Doula, Holistic Educator, Founder, Birth Manifesta LLC)
Tanzye, is an educator, advocate, and mentor committed to restoring the wholeness of individuals and communities by creating safe spaces and encouraging others to trust their voice. ”I believe Wombyn are the crux of the community and it is our responsibility to nurture and protect them physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually at all times. It is through them that all life passes, therefore, we must center their voices and choices and provide safety for the manifestation of all that they desire to birth."
2020- 2021 ambassadors program
Justice for Black Girls (JBG) endeavors to elevate the voices of Black girls as the experts and cultivate student activism through our Justice Ambassadors Program. Here we engage Black girls from all over the country in the academic and policy work that centers Black girlhood. The JBG Ambassadors Program also provides opportunities for Ambassadors to partner with grassroots organizations, higher learning institutions and leading activists, authors, and theorists whose work centers Black girls.
JBG recognizes education as liberation and endeavors to combat the universal suppression of Black girls’ experience and the miseducation of Black girlhood through our Black Girlhood curriculum entitled, 4LittleGirls in honor of 4 Black girls who lost their life due to the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church September 15th 1963. This curriculum, launching publicly, will be made available to girls in school and authorized by liberation pedagogy for girls who are incarcerated or system involved.
Ultimately JBG is focused on equipping Black girls with tools not authorized by empowerment- focused on developing self help in the midst of structural degradation, but power- the agency to alter the systems that actively marginalize Black girlhood.
Topics include but not limited to: Intersectionality, Adultification, Incarceration, School to Confinement Pathways, Black girl autoethnography, Black Girl Safekeeping + Healing, Liberation
WHO CAN APPLY:
Black girls in the United States in grades 7-12
2020-2021 PROGRAM LOGISTICS
Dates: October 1st 2020- May 6th 2021
Monthly sessions (Every first Thursday of the month)
Time: 4:30PST/7:30EST
Applications close September 18th at 11:59pmEST. Please note that this is Eastern Standard Time. Accepted applicants will be notified during the last week of September.
summer PROGRAM LOGISTICS
Dates: July 7-August 4
Biweekly sessions (Tuesday + Thursday)
Applicants are currently closed. Accepted applicants will be notified between July 2nd-5th
Please follow us on instagram @justice4blackgirls to learn more about JBG and our receive updates regarding the program and our work!
Summer Program Highlights:
BLACK GIRL TALK SERIES featuring Dr. Monique W. Morris, Tarana Burke & Ree Botts
POP UP CLASSROOM SERIES: (1) The Adultification & Criminalization of Black Girlhood, (2) Colorism, Cultural Appropriation, Respectability, (3) Black girl Safekeeping, Healing & Liberation
JBG Ambassadors serve as Guest Presenters: Black Feminist Healing Arts: Reading, Writing, & Living a Praxis of Womanist Care (UC Berkeley Summer Course led by Ree Botts, UC Berkeley Doctoral Student)
2019 ambassadors program- NEW YORK LOCAL
Pictured from L-R (Knathifa Cambridge, Merina Begum, Janyah Barrow, Janelle Johnson, Katrina Green, Akilah Collins (7th Grade JBG Ambassadors)
The 2019 Ambassadors program has inspired the following projects authored by secondary aged students:
Race, Girlhood, Criminality & Justice:
A multi modal project authored by 7th grade scholars of Excellence Girls Middle Academy
Presented at Columbia University’s DIRP Annual Research Conference & The National Urban League Headquarters (May 2018)
Justice for Black Girls:
The Adultification & Criminalization of Black Girls
An academic research project authored by 9th grade scholars of Capital Prep Harlem
Presented at Center for Justice at Columbia University inaugural justice conference entitled From the Inside Out: The Power of Language to Incarcerate (September 2019)