Each One, Teach One!
Tracey Mourning [wife of NBA star Alonzo Mourning] has started a new initiative to empower young black girls across the globe. With so many impoverished young black women in our country, there is more than can be done to help, mentor, and educate these young women to better their lives, their self esteem, and self worth.
One woman decided to join in the stand in aiding these women; hence the birth of Honey Shine Inc.; a non-profit organization. “I believe before I was born, Honey Shine was meant to be” – says Mourning!
” I use to live here in South Florida when I was a little girl and my husband’s job brought us back here, I would visit the lady that use to take care of me while my mom worked.
In visiting her in the same neighborhood at the same house where she took care of us, I would see groups of girls walking in the neighborhood with ‘no direction’, ‘no where to go’, ‘with babies on their hips’, house shoes in the middle of the streets in groups and in packs, and that’s when GOD placed it on my heart that I need to do something about it. “
We use to say ‘Honey Child Please’, ‘Rest Your Nerves’! From ‘Honey Child’, there came ‘Honey Shine’, and one day I got a group of AMAZING ladies around the dining room table and said we have to do something about this.
” The mission of Honey Shine is to encourage young girls to SHINE as women, you know for me as a teenager when I was in high school it was tough. I was emotional, I felt like I had no one my side, on my team, but with Honey Shine we want our Honeybuns to know that they’re not by themselves and pretty much all of the girls around you are going through the same thing as you, so Honey buns to ‘SHINE’ as women. “
As one participant explains Honey Shine means family, togetherness, and unity.
Mourning intends to take her Honey Shine initiative nationwide with the help of funding in an efforts to raise awareness.
” I genuinely and truly and heartbreakingly feel that there’s an attack that’s happening on young people, especially our women of color. We know that’s happening on our women. It’s been happening forever. And if our men suffer our women suffer even more. ”
The above statement resonated with me so deeply as I reflect on my years in youth passion and the all the lives that were impacted simply by my daily presence, my experiences [most of which enhanced throughout my employment at this particular non-profit organization] and most of all my gift of wanting to SERVE.
Many of us choose the path that we want to walk in when we’re trying to achieve ‘success’ and for many, when that goal is achieve, there’s no looking back, and sadly that’s where the problem lies. Each of us has a duty to SERVE on this planet.
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