The Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District partnered with the Girl Scouts of Greater South Texas to help impact the lives of many young women by providing them with leadership training.
HCISD and the Girl Scouts of Greater South Texas hosted the first Women Leaders of Tomorrow Conference at Memorial Middle School on May 11.
The free conference featured workshops and activities in order to provide the young women of the Rio Grande Valley with opportunities to gain knowledge and skills from professionals within the community.
“We wanted to make a positive impact for the girls, to have good examples of the people they could be, and to gain confidence in themselves. By working with the girls and these workshops, professionals in the area can help them gain the skills that they need in everyday life and their future,” said Danielle Altenburg, Director of Marketing.
There were of total of 12 different workshops in which professional women in businesses and nonprofit organizations throughout the community came and talked about different career options.
Representatives from United Way, Texas State Technical College (TSTC), Harlingen Police Department, Boarder Patrol, and Channel 4 News gave advice to the young women.
“I talked about my background, being an athlete and how sports helped me gain confidence, leadership skills, certainly working with people in a team session, and how that’s transferred and helped me achieve my goals today being a health care executive,” said Brenda Ivory, speaker at the conference and CEO of Harlingen Medical Center.
Many of the girls responded to the workshop with interest and excitement. They were very engaged, well prepared and a great group of motivated young girls who asked questions which were insightful and challenging, said Ivory.
“We learned about our personalities, we compared ourselves to different people that we didn’t know and learn about them. I think it will help me to meet new people and make new friends as well as help us grow and expand our personality to learn new things”, said Girl Scouts Briana and Victoria Saenz.
With all the positive responses received, HCISD along with Girl Scouts of Greater South Texas hope to next year host another conference.
“We definitely want to do it again next year. We have learned a lot from it this year and got a great response from it. We want to make it bigger and better and girl scouts next year want to implement this into a bunch of school districts,” said Altenburg.
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