Our organization is dedicated to helping young Latina girls' future.
OUR MISSION
Our goal is to encourage Hispanic adolescent girls to stay in school,
live healthy lives, pursue high academic and career goals.
What we Offer
This program offers middle and high school girls a year-long curriculum that focuses on helping them succeed in life, raise their self-confidence and expectations for the future, develop their leadership skills, set and meet goals to realize their potential and start them on their road to a career that matches their skills and passion.
How The Hermanitas Program Works
Hermanitas® (Little Sisters) are matched with trained mentors from their home communities. Their mentors, referred to as Madrinas®, commit to 110 hours of mentoring and activities over the course of one year. Educational group activities for students and parents provide outlets for additional interaction and skill building.
Benefits Of The Hermanitas Program
An independently-evaluated, national, three-year MANA study published in the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy (Volume 19, 2006-2007) assessed the impact of the national Hermanitas Program and found that Hermanitas who participated in the program achieved the following outcomes:
- Maintained consistent levels of self-esteem,
- Displayed lower rates of depression than national averages,
- Displayed an increasingly negative view of drugs and alcohol, and
- Displayed a growing positive attitude toward school and higher education.
Participants of the Hermanitas program recieve the opportunity to engage in workshops focusing on leadership, communication, identity, goal-setting and other topics relevant to Latinas.
An Experiential Day puts focus on real-world applications to the program materials. Influential Latinas from across the United States and diverse professions take time to speak to the participants and provide encouragement.
We offer support through the “MANA Club” including its weekly seminars.
Conferences and college visits are made available for the girls, and we give college scholarships to those seniors having a least a 3.0 GPA, with priority to those going to a 4-year university.