Event

1st Annual Atabey Spring Benefit

Fundraiser for Atabey: Intergenerational Teen Mother Mentorship Program. Proyecto Atabey (which refers to the Taino goddess of motherhood and fertility) provides intergenerational mentorship and support to young Latina and African American mothers through the establishment of an intergenerational mentoring program. This project is offered to student parents attending The Family Learning Center, a program at Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School, an alternative high school serving the educational and cultural needs of youth aged 16-21 in the largely Puerto Rican community of Humboldt Park, located on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago. Mentors include graduates from the program, as well as other mothers in the community who were themselves teen parents, to provide presentations to current FLC participants where they share their experiences, as young mothers and since graduating from the program. In these presentations they speak to some of the challenges they have faced as young mothers, as well as discuss how they have overcome these challenges and achieved educational, professional, personal, and/or economic success. Mentors are also paired with an individual student to provide them with more customized support and assistance for achieving their goals.

The program also offers events and activities, such as field trips/visits to local colleges and universities, training programs, and various work sites (some of these visits are hosted by mentors at their workplace). These workshops and events furnish students with important information and skills that can help them as they transition from high school to college and/or work and promote their independence and success as they create better lives for themselves and their children.