Surefire Girls is a groundbreaking event happening THIS WEEKEND for high-school girls to ask questions, discover ways in which to empower themselves, get internships, and find their voices in relation to media literacy and self-awareness. The event is, Saturday, October 12, 2013, 10 AM – 5:00 PM at the Art Institute of California: 2900 31st Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90405.
This Surefire Girls event is smaller and more of a sneak peak into what will be, however a larger event is slated for 2014. Online registration is closed, however, there will be limited tickets available onsite. There are workshops for parents too, so while teens are working in one workshop, parents are working in another.
Teen workshops include:
- Your Story & Social Media
- Fashion
- Beauty
- Fitness
- Change Your World
- Money Matters
For parents, workshops include:
- Websites and apps to make your life easier, and decoding the ones your daughters use
- How to listen and communicate with your teen
- Getting back your inner calm
- How girls can be influenced by the media in body image as well as career choice
Being a teen is not easy. Bodies are changing at a rapid pace, the brain is developing, and the individuation process is in full force. To add to the melee, teens are confronted with the influences of media, their peers, pop stars, et cetera, which are often confusing and misleading. Finding our authenticity is hard work, and harder still when you are bombarded with distortion as the status quo. Surefire Girls presents a wonderful opportunity for forward-thinking, curious young ladies to smash down the existing paradigm of beauty to create a more empowered, sustainable existence.
Melanie Klein, MA, writer, speaker, expert contributor at Proud2BMe, a NEDA project, founder and co-coordinator for Women, Action, Media (WAM!), and adjunct teacher at Santa Monica College (teaching Women’s Studies and Sociology) will be doing her Body Collage project at Surefire Girls. In this workshop, Melanie will talk about the cultural limitations of beauty ideals, and she will facilitate a process of uncovering and discovering that beauty is limitless, dismantling this idea that there is only one type of attainable beauty. The Body Collage involves creating a floor to ceiling montage of commercial images using poster board. The girls stand in front of this and find that they are not represented, viscerally shifting their perspectives on reality. As part of the project, I will be hosting a photo booth, further facilitating the shift toward acceptance. It’s incredibly empowering to see how beautiful YOU are in the midst of photoshopped, surreal imagery.
You can read more about Melanie and the Body Collage Project in this more in-depth interview with her from Shaping Youth.
Originally posted on October 11, 2013 @ 7:52 pm
