Launch Party

September 13, 2021Leave a comment

On September 16, 2021, Wonderfully Made will host its inaugural launch and information session. This online event features: meeting the founders, information about the program, prizes and more.

Register Now for the Wonderfully Made Launch Party

Featuring: prizes, information, and meet the founders

Why Wonderfully Made?

Wonderfully Made is a Black-led grassroots organization, led by youth that aims to cultivate emotional, mental and career wellbeing for Black girls and women. Wonderfully Made is designed to support girls and women build their self-esteem, cultural and self-identity, and guide them through their careers, professional and personal lives. The leaders seek to reinforce the importance of representation and supporting girls and women to see themselves reflected through the program.

Wonderfully Made Girl creator, Adrianna Perryman found the inspiration for this program through her work with the Kisaruni girls in Kenya. Their residential program established an unique mentorship program with the senior high school girls, “mamas’ would mentor and nurture younger junior girls entering the system. Similarly, Wonderfully Made recruits women ages 16 and up to conduct workshops and programming for younger girls from 12 to 16. The program ends each year with a girls led conference and overnight retreat.

Faith Buchanan, Justine Allen, and Tracy Amponsah are Board Members of Wonderfully Made. Through their expertise as artists, social workers, educators and psychotherapists, the organization became to be. Justine Allen believed that this program would support the health and wellbeing of Black girls. She writes, “for myself, growing up in spaces that lacked healthy representation deeply impacted my self-esteem and self-worth. There is so much power in feeling seen, understood, and supported in a safe space. Having the opportunity to be part of this program as a mentee would have been so meaningful to me as a young girl through early adulthood”. Creative Director and future educator, Faith Buchanan described art as a safe space for girls, and expressed I am incredibly passionate about mentoring black youth and being the role model, I wish I had as a young artist”. Tracy Amponsah is a seasoned case manager in her career and shares her hope for Wonderfully Made and the youth and families who would benefit. She exclaims, “This project is something I wish I had more of growing up as a young black womxn, who is first generation”.

Wonderfully Made Pilot

Wonderfully Made is a piloted program funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, and supported by the Durham AIDS Committee. The DAC focuses on supporting youth and adults impacted by AIDS, and fits nicely with the vision and mission statement for Wonderfully Made.

Ontario Trillium Foundation- Youth Innovations Fund

The OTF provided a three-year test grant to the youth-led and driven program. Through the grant, the organizers are provided funding that helps the organization to realize its goals. The funding includes staffing, workshops and webinars, advertisement, an annual retreat, and yearly youth conference.

Pillars of Change

Wonderfully Made has four pillars that guide the work within the team. and in the program. The pillars guide how youth are supported throughout the program, and how our mentors and elders guide the mentees.

Our stories

Help to guide the passion underlying Wonderfully Made, and the vision developed by the founders and the community.

Launch Agenda and Activities

Wonderfully Made founders will host and guide the agenda and activities for the launch party. The founders will invite people to participate in the group or remain in listen-only mode. The launch party features poll questions, prizes and knowledge questions.

Topics covered

Our team will explore our vision, mission, and pillars. We will discuss our programming and upcoming workshops. and our annual retreat designed for youth.

100 Shades of Black: Understanding colourism

April 24, 2021

In this workshop we celebrate the beauty that exists in all shades of brown and highlight the importance of young Black women uniting. This workshop is to educate girls on the impacts of colourism in their daily lives, and spread awareness on the importance of solidarity to appreciate and encompass all shades of brown.

Colourism is a term that was coined by Alice Walker in 1983, and she defined it as “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color”(Shepherd-Wynn, 2017).
Alice Walker

Colourism dates back to colonial days when slave owners would rape their slaves, creating biracial children who received preferential treatment and privilege, over the darker skinned slaves (Khanna, 2010). Skin tone combined with the intersection of being a woman widely effects women of colour, as beauty standards in the Westerns society idolizes lighter skin tones (Craddock et al, 2018).

Adolescence represents the transitional phase from childhood to adulthood, and is a crucial stage of physiological and socio-emotional development (Craddock et al, 2018). During this stage our self-esteem and how we perceive ourselves is widely impacted by the world around us. Global beauty standards are deeply embedded with colourism, with a lot of the socio-cultural pressures placed on young woman to achieve unrealistic standards of beauty.

Global beauty standards are deeply embedded in colourism, with socio-cultural pressures places on young women to achieve unrealistic standards of beauty.

Although colourism started centuries ago, the impacts of colourism remain present today, and there is mounting evidence that colourism negatively impact adolescents and adults in a variety of areas which may include: education, dating, and in the criminal justice system.

Workshop Objective:

To empower young Black women by educating them on the past and showcasing that all Black skin is beautiful. As well as redefining beauty standards of the Western world, showing the importance of including all shades of brown with specific inclusive measures for darker shades.

This workshop is appropriate for mentors and mentees to assist them with understanding how colourism can impact girls as young as 3 years old.

Self-Care Strategies

April 4, 2021Leave a comment

About this workshop

This workshop emphases on self-care strategies and use client centered approaches. The workshop is consistent on engaging and interactive group discussions and practical activities. Participants identify and evaluate their own strategies, and create a personal self-care plan.

This workshop encourages mentors and mentees to nurture themselves and make self-renewal in part of their routine life by maintaining their physical, emotional, spiritual and mental health

Objectives

Create a self-care plan

Learn self-care strategies

Understand creating balance in health

Understand emotional triggers

Understand how stress impacts the body

Understand when to seek support

Eligibility

This course is for mentors who are starting the program. Once mentors complete the modules on Self-Care, they can teach this workshop to mentees.

Art Workshop

September 12, 2020September 12, 2020Leave a comment

Explore art expression, creativity and healing in art workshop. Practice using different mediums to express your inner soul.

In this workshop, girls use art as a way to express their thoughts, their experiences and creativity. Use mindfulness and meditation to generate your creativity, and to focus on using art to express yourself.

Goals: encourage girls to learn how to use different mediums for expression, to use art to express their feelings and tell their stories, and explore historical art work produced by their ancestors.

Dance Xpressions

September 12, 2020September 12, 2020Leave a comment

Dance is an art of expression. Dance infuses emotions, stories, history, pain, and experiences. All dancers are great dancers. Through our dance workshop, girls learn how to express themselves and tell concept stories using a variety of dance mediums.

Objective: Learn at different levels the art of dance, and expression. Practice different styles of dance through movement. Create a concept dance video for the group.

Goals: To encourage girls to use dance to explore themselves through dance. To learn about new ways of dance.

Spoken Word Workshop

September 12, 2020September 12, 2020Leave a comment

Wonderfully Made is a program initiative that was created to counter the disparity that girls feel as they compare themselves to images. This initiative is designed for Black girls from the ages of 12 to 29 years old. The program matches girls with older girls of colour to foster positive peer mentorship and sisterhood.

Black girls are highly represented in multiple systems such as human trafficking, criminal systems, child welfare system and educational penal system. We are hoping to address these alarming statistics through our community-based program. Through research and data collection, we have learned that these special groups are often underserviced in community and public agencies. Through the programming, a cultural, holistic and strength-based approach is used to support youth and their families.

As we tell our stories, hear our stories, feel our pain, and watch us grow.

Black Girl Book Club

September 12, 2020September 12, 2020Leave a comment

Appreciating Diversity

September 12, 2020September 12, 2020Leave a comment

Course Objectives: the purpose of this course is to discuss and unpack the impact on systemic oppression upon Black and Indigenous peoples. During the course, participants will understand and appreciate the differences between people and learn to facilitate diversity. To facilitate discussion on the impacts of racism, the historical and ongoing effects of colonization on this land and the linkages existing between different forms of racism. This program aims to shift the focus to the resiliency and strengths of those who face racism and how we can all build-all-ship. It is also very important for girls to be mentored by those who are as diverse as they are; to be able to see themselves in a position of power.

Goal: to understand the impact of systemic racism, to learn how to appreciate diversity and equity, and to understand the unique role of mentors in supporting girls.

Body Image

September 12, 2020Leave a comment

Course Objective: This workshop will address ways to prevent and understand negative body image by critically examining harmful messages presented in the media as well as common attitudes and myths in society at large. The program also explores how negative body image and low self-esteem can be linked with unhealthy behaviours such as disordered eating and over-exercising, risk-taking and the impact on mental wellness.

Goals: Girls can discuss how they can feel better about their bodies and learn skills to support others.

Yoga

September 12, 2020September 13, 2020Leave a comment

The Health of Children website term yoga as, “The term “yoga” comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “union.” Yoga combines physical exercises, mental meditation, and breathing techniques to strengthen the muscles and relieve stress” (Reference: http://www.thehealthofchildren.com).

This workshop provides an introductory practice in yoga with mentees and mentors with the purpose of teaching meditation and physical exercise. The courses are led by a yoga instructor, and uses multiple lessons on yoga such as Yoga and Movement, Yoga and Dance, Yoga and Ribbon, and more.