SEL Awardee

Karla McCarty

Paintsville High School
Paintsville Independent Schools
Paintsville, KY
“Project LeadHERship is a student driven effort to provide an environment and culture for female students, grades 9-12 enrolled at Paintsville High School, to seek membership in an organization that exists to build leadership capacity in young women while targeting and approaching social issues. Project LeadHERship will be a community for students to grow and mature through targeted exercises, educational opportunities and self exploration in areas of leadership, self-awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making. Leadership is a skill that can be learned and developed through instruction, self reflection and practice. Our location in rural Appalachia, coupled with the local high rate of poverty and unemployment levels, has created barriers for young women to envision themselves as strong, confident leaders. This program will meet at a minimum once a month and provide mentorship and guidance to help our Eastern Kentucky girls grow up with the skills and confidence to break gender inequities and barriers to becoming successful, independent ladies. This inaugural year project is designed to establish a program that will be sustainable and expand upon after grant funding has ended.”
Tags: Girls & Young Women of Color, High School, Rural, Teacher, Traditional Public School