2009 Grants Announced!

We are thrilled to announce a record number of grants to a record number of organizations in Greater Boston and Israel. Grant Committees met for a final time last week and recommended 17 grants totaling $275,000 for programs that benefit women and girls.

Congratulations to all our hardworking committees, our chairs and committee members for another year of remarkable achievement!

And, remember to join us on May 7 at 8 AM at Temple Reyim in Newton to hear "So Sexy So Soon" author Diane Levin, and then again on Thursday evening June 11 for our closing event.


BOSTON JEWISH COMMUNITY WOMEN’S FUND 2009 GRANT AWARDS

Multi-year grant

Jewish Women’s Archive: $75,000 (over 3 years)
Project: Bat Mitzvah Interactive
This new online initiative is designed to bring fresh meaning, relevance and inspiration to the Bat Mitzvah experience for girls and their families. Interweaving three related strands – community service, family stories and Jewish women’s history – the program invites b’not mitzvah to explore the stories of Jewish women in America and in their own families, making connections between Jewish traditions and values and their own emerging identities. Using technology and contemporary sources, young girls will acquire the tools to connect their own Bat Mitzvah experiences to a level of meaning that extends beyond text and into the contemporary world. Bat Mitzvah becomes a true rite of passage, a springboard into participation in adult Jewish life, with memories longer-lasting and more meaningful than a party.

Grants to Jewish organizations in Boston

NEW

Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly: $25,000
Project: Critical Mental Health Services for JCHE Women

This project will enable JCHE to address mental illness in women tenants who are at risk of being evicted. JCHE will partner with Jewish Family & Children’s Service to increase existing staff capacity to recognize and respond to mental illness in tenants and to work directly with tenants who need encouragement to accept mental health services. 30 JCHE staff will be trained and 700+ women and their families will be served.

Moving Traditions: $25,000
Project: Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing!

This project will empower 300-350 adolescent girls in Greater Boston to stay healthy and Jewish by expanding Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! to 7-10 partner area synagogues. The program draws on Jewish teachings and traditions to promote self esteem, leadership skills and Jewish identity in girls in grades 6-12 during a five year curriculum based on the Rosh Hodesh (New Moon) holiday. The adult facilitators are trained by Moving Traditions. The funding will help support pre-service training and on-going consultation of facilitators and help partner institutions afford the program cost by underwriting fees.

Mayyim Hayyim: $17,500
Project: Embracing Waters Initiative

This project focuses on Jewish survivors of abuse, and will support training for Mayyim Hayyim volunteer and professional leaders, new programs for survivors of abuse, outreach to care providers and national dissemination of new resources that show how mikveh can be a source of spiritual healing for survivors of abuse. A partnership with Kol Isha at Jewish Family & Children’s Service extends the resources available to this project. The target population includes the women and men volunteering as mikveh guides, staff and board members (approximately 120) as well as a broader population reached through national resources. We are convinced that Embracing Waters offers an innovative and authentically Jewish approach to healing and recovery for Jewish women.

THIRD YEAR FUNDING

Jewish Family Service of Metrowest: $12,500
Project: For Our Daughters
(2008 funding: $23,000; 2007 funding: $23,000)

This project focuses on pre-Bat-mitzvah age middle-school girls and teaches healthy body image/self confidence skills in an effort to avoid eating disorders. In the first two years, the project developed curriculums used in separate workshops for mothers and their daughters which have been used at four different synagogues. This year’s funding, though reduced, reflects confidence in the project and the hope that the project coordinators will use this last year of funding to put volunteer lay leaders in position to continue the effort.

Grants to secular organizations in Boston

NEW

Boston Medical Center : $8,500
Project: Hey Mama!

This BMC initiative is directed to improving the health of vulnerable Haitian women and infants by providing services to at-risk, low-income Haitian mothers who have a high rate of poor birth outcomes. The proposal requested support for peer support for Haitian women and a pregnancy, birth and early parenting guide to be translated and reproduced in Haitian Creole. The grant will support the translation and production of the parenting guide.

Second Step: $15,000
Project: IMAGINE: Inspiration, Motivation and Growth in Networks that Inspire

IMAGINE is a mentoring program for survivors of domestic violence who are living on their own in the community. Based on a life-coaching model, IMAGINE provides a long term relationship between a survivor and a volunteer mentor, and also facilitates the building of ongoing communities among survivors. Mentors are trained and supervised by the agency and serve as role models and counselors, supporting their mentees and helping them achieve such milestones as establishing a home, going to school, parenting, finding a job and starting a new life. Each pair meets frequently for at least nine months, and the mentees meet twice a month without mentors present in a facilitated group.

SECOND YEAR FUNDING:

Adolescent Consultation Services
Project: Specialized Girls’ Group Treatment Program
(2008 grant: $5,000)

This project serves court-involved girls with a psycho-educational group that is led by an ACS clinician. Attendance and participation are conditions of each girl’s probation. The groups are geared to young women who are in court due to a CHINS (child in need of services) petition or a non-violent delinquency charge. Groups stress intervention and prevention, covering areas that included dating violence, anger control, bias, depression, safe sex, abuse, depression and stress.

RAW Art Works: $10,000
Project: Women 2/Be/Art 4 Girlz
(2008 grant: $10,000)

Women 2 Be (high school)/Art for Girlz (middle school) help at-risk inner city Lynn girls, ages 11-18, find their voices in both art and words through participation in art and the support and mentoring of older girls, women and each other in a safe and vibrant environment. Programming is organized and provided by trained art therapists. Reflective writing/journaling, along with weekly-check-ins, are important components of the groups, along with expressive art projects, such as personal super powers, patterns in music and life and self- portraiture.

Strong Women Strong Girls: $15,000
Project: After-School Mentoring for At-Risk Girls
(2007 grant: $5,000)

Strong Women Strong Girls links young at-risk girls (grades 3-5) with college-age mentors who serve as role models for their futures. The college women engage the girls in a weekly curriculum activity that teaches about a contemporary or historic woman role model and a critical life skill. The program trains and provides supports to the mentors, who are all volunteers. 350 girls in 25 Boston schools are served.

Victim Rights Law Center: $15,000
Project: Girls Rape Survivors Law Project
(2008 grant: $20,000)

The program’s goal is to help teens return to school after a sexual assault feeling safe and achieving greater academic success as a result of civil legal interventions. The staff of VRLC, in collaboration with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center and Northeastern University, has developed specialized approaches to the issues facing these teen rape victims. They reach out to the legal community in Greater Boston to secure volunteer representation for clients, research best practices in presenting civil legal training, and work with schools and agencies to secure the re-integration of the rape victim into her school and community.

THIRD YEAR FUNDING

Bird Street Community Center: $20,000
Project: The Girls of Bird Street – Bring Out The Me
(2008 grant: $25,000: 2007 grant: $25,000)

Bird Street operates in the Uphams Corner neighborhood of Boston, an area blighted by poverty and violence. Girls’ programs help young women 10-22 prepare for independence and improve self-sufficiency. Social and emotional wellness time, sexual identity, peer influence, and other vitally important topics are included in into all programs, and the agency has recently added in-depth mentoring into the mix. Programs meet four times a week, and provide exposure to math, science, technology and other fields. An innovative arts entrepreneurship program includes fashion design, video production and dance.

Grants to organizations in Israel

SECOND YEAR FUNDING

Israel Women’s Network: $14,000
Project: Advocacy Center
(2007 grant: $15,000)

The Advocacy Center develops legislation on issues affecting women, consults with members of the Knesset, provides legal assistance and representation in precedent-setting cases and cooperates with other social-change organizations to achieve shared goals. Funding supports its hotline for women facing gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, which last year received over 1,200 calls.

Mahut: $19,000
Project: Women Open Doors to Employment
(2008 grant: $25,000)

Women Open Doors to Employment combines economic empowerment courses with education, professional training and an active placement program along with long term personal support in order to provide participants with personal empowerment, an employment tool kit and emotional support to succeed in the employment market to become economically independent. The program serves women in their 20’s through 50’s.

Rackman Center at Bar Ilan University: $15,000
Project: Legal Aid, Advocacy and Outreach in Family Law and Women’s Rights
(2007 grant: $13,500)

The Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women works through the legal and judicial system in Israel to advocate for women confronting the Rabbinical Courts in divorce and related family law issues. Under Rabbinical law, the only judiciary for legal divorce, control is in the hands of the husband. Training law students at Bar Ilan University, the program provides free legal counsel for women in the Rabbinic Court, advances legislation on behalf of women’s rights and advocates for fair election of judges to the Rabbinical court. It also provides free legal advice through a hotline.

THIRD YEAR FUNDING

Economic Empowerment for Women: $19,000
Project: Business incubator
(2008 grant: $25,000: 2007 grant: $24,000)

Started in April 2007, this is the first incubator for low-income women entrepreneurs in northern Israel. Its goal is to nurture the growth and success of women’s micro-enterprises through an array of support resources and social services that will increase their viability during the vulnerable start-up period. Through business seminars, small coaching groups, peer support, one-on-one consultations, and meetings to facilitate sales opportunities and personal support, the program currently serves 50-60 women (65% Jewish and 35% Arab) whose average income per family is at the poverty line for a family of 4.

KIDMA, at the University of Haifa: $15,000
Project: Nipping Violence in the Bud
(2008 grant: $17,000: 2007 grant: $15,000)

This program focuses on educating teenage girls about abuse or violence in intimate relationships, values clarification in relation to dating violence, personal health matters, healthy sexuality, making informed choices and empowerment. It serves 6 to 8 groups of approximately 12-15, more than 100 girls. Through lectures and workshops with group facilitators, a structured program is offered to teen girls in schools and immigrant programs.