About Goddaughters

"Mission of “Goddaughters” Where the Community & Villagers Act as godparents!

‘Goddaughters’ is a leadership, empowerment, mentoring program, and a movement that is targeted towards the female Youth (but will expand to our Godsons program). Its mission uses a holistic approach to wellness that will stir up an inner-revival and motivation in young girls, adolescents and young women, and lead them towards finding their identity. ‘Goddaughters’ is also designed to teach on empowerment, confidence, godly/self-esteem, self-care, ambition, nurturance, healthy relationships, healing, healthy maturation, celibacy education, leadership, education, arts-enhancing education, healthy communication, and determination coupled with zeal, and tenacity in order to push them into their ordained purpose, destiny and mission. Where the Community & Villagers are the godparents!

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Our sessions are intensive!

Workshops are designed to: Increase and build up adolescent females’ level of esteem and confidence, increase an awareness of inner-strengths, find their god-given identity, connect educational-career-goal & purpose to their natural skills, gifts & talents, educate them on life skills, leadership and more. Check out Workshop Themes page for complete list of sessions.

Another goal is to help point youth (or reinforce) in positive directions and prevent them

from potentially experiencing adult dysfunctional relationships and distorted thinking and behavior due to experiencing all forms of trauma including abuse & troubling/negative events, parental-abandonment, rejection, neglect, lack of love & emotional support, lack of spiritual & social development,...that can cause them to have unhealthy peer, friendship and familial relationships, and also become poor authority figures (leaders).

Just to name a few workshop types:

Explore underlying issues (issues behind their behavior, attitudes, insecurities, low self-esteem, competitiveness, Catty fights, rebellion, bullying & mental health, physical fights, substance abuse, sexual behavior/sexual-immorality) that may prohibit girls/teens from realizing their “True- self” in God. It will be a season of prayer, growth, healing, self-revelation and understanding.

Learn connectedness, forgiveness, truth, breakthroughs, knowledge, sisterly-love, communication-skills,-leadership development, setting goals, knowledge of societal issues and responsibility.

Embracing the Father's love using their gifts and talents to enhance their life and the love of others and embracing 'self' and rebuking self-defeating voice and thoughts. We want to show them the many things they share in common with their sister. Living as daughters of a healthy community and daughters of God!

Social Influences: body image, media-messages-exploitation-gender-discrimination, explore external/internal barriers.

Education & Career Mapping: Information & identifying colleges/vocational training/careers, future college campus tours, mentoring, career shadowing and more.

God's Daughters: female youth will understand they have a godly-purpose in the earth, learn about spiritual warfare, teen-witnessing (salt & light), prophetic writing (writing down visions, goals & dreams), inspirational confessions/affirmations.

Self-expression through the Arts!: Receive Expressive therapy/arts from

mental health professional, learn liturgical dance, drama, music & drawing/painting.

About the Retreats:

Help the next generation of women to grow up spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and financially healthy regardless of their past, former or present familial-emotional-spiritual-psychological state, environment, situation and circumstances.

Youth and young adult female workshop sessions will include; open discussions; testimonies and wisdom from women and men of all ages. There will be devotional and worship & praise services; prayer; ministry through drama, poetry, music, dance & song.

Also, there will be discussion panels, recreational activities, teaching, a Tea, free-time, karaoke, gift-bags, Goddaughter's products & merchandise available for sales and donations.

Women come together to introduce, school and transfer the tools needed by our conference participants to become empowered.

As a social/human service worker, counselor, minister and pastoral counselor, I've learned that we as helpers cannot empower others alone but we can provide them with the information, wisdom, experience and tools needed with biblical principles that can help them empower themselves. It is they/them that have to apply and do the work.

Watch What You Say About and In Front of Children and Youth.

Labeling: We do not believe in labeling children or youth with labels such as "kids At Risk" "Trouble Youth" "Problem Kids" or "Bad Kids" to name a few because it has a negative affect and connotation.

Using the positive label, “Goddaughters” or “Godchildren” helps to redirect and connect our children and youth towards the “Father-God.” Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, do not forbid them; for of such is the Kingdom of God!” (Mathew 19:14 NKJV).

This information is based on my experience of Observation, Interactions and Encounters with other children and youth during my childhood, Working with children and youth, Personal research by talking with friends and fellow –classmates who have been negatively affected by verbal abuse; Labeled by family members, Case studies, society, Counseling professionals and school faculty, Textbooks and Scholastic and Peer Review articles and Research.

According to Cheryl, Labeling children and youth as being “Gifted” and “Talented” (Except in certain environments-Performing Arts) is not always the best practice as well and can have some negative affects to these kids and other kid’s perception of self in comparison to others. Some might consider using the term “At Hope” instead of “At Risk” “Troubled” or the ascribed medical labels attached to children and youth who may engage in risky behavior because of the above circumstances or who have learning disabilities or behavioral issues. I say use this term “At Hope” or "Of Promise" for All children and youth and not single anyone out or in.

In fact, Bruce Perry says, "in order for clinicians to get reimbursed, they have to label. Most secular counselors, doctors and therapist use medical labels, which have shown to have severe effects on people (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2007). Many people feel out-casted and sometimes cause a person to become

lazy by not wanting to take control of their life’s responsibilities.

Medical models usually consist of a lengthy list of classifications and emotional and behavioral issues are usually considered as mental illness in conjunction with physical illness (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2007). The medical model stems from an historical view that people with emotional and behavior issues were all demon-possessed.

Explore underlying issues (issues behind their behavior, attitudes, insecurities, low self-esteem, competitiveness, Catty fights, rebellion, physical fights, substance abuse, sexual behavior/sexual-immorality) that may prohibit girls/teens from realizing their “True- self” in God. It will be a season of prayer, growth, healing, self-revelation and understanding.

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The family structure has declined and this is one of the reasons why there is a rise in gang violence, adolescents indulging in drugs, and sexual activity while on a quest for self-definition.

As we've experienced, programs such as this one can complement and supplement parent’s efforts in affirming and building up their children’s esteem, confidence, behavioral, spiritual & psychological issues.

Some of today’s prevalent issues in our society are the break-down of the family structure and impoverished communities in regards to the lack of individual and family resources that help meet the needs of people in their immediate and surrounding communities. There have been numerous holistic initiatives in developing communities such as: multi-purpose centers, other supportive programs that provide services to help strengthen and empower its community members.

Cohabitation is on the rise and also becoming a more popular family structure. Also today, about 50% of American families are in blended families (Gonzales, 2009). Step-families are becoming one of the most prevalent American family forms, many pre-blended (step-families) which consist of couples who remarried, single parents of the opposite sex who marry and have their children from their previous partners and step-families.

Children involved in some of these blended are affected negatively and caught in the middle. Some of them may still be suffering from the death or absence of a parent from a previous divorce. There are also the issues of child disciplinary styles, parenting styles, spirituality, and family reunification or unification if it’s a remarriage or pre-blended family coming together.