The evening started out with explaining how each Thursday will work. Girls and mentors are split into two groups for the first hour each week. One group heads off to the darkroom to work with Liana on photography projects and one group works with Tesni for Girl Talk. Then the next week they switch! Girl Talk is new this year and focuses on important life and leadership skills for the girls.
This week's girl talk was all about getting to know one another and about building trust. Girls and mentors sat in a circle together. In the center were a huge pile of postcards with cool photos and images on them. Each big and little sister choice their favorite postcard - specifically one they thought best represented them as a person and talked to each other about why. Then each person introduced themselves to the group and told everyone about themselves and their big or little sister.
Then the group came up with "group norms" together on a big sheet of paper. "Group norms" are all of the things that big and little sisters thought were important in order to create a comfortable atmosphere of trust and learning for the rest of their nights in Girl Talk. Each girl talked about how it was their responsibility to keep this a safe space.
Not judging
Kindness
Listening
Not interrupting
Laughing at appropriate times
Girl Talk also included some fun get-to-know-you games like: "untangle", where girls and mentors got in a group and grabbed hands and then untangled themselves; coming up with as many similarities with their big and little sister within just a few minutes (one group had 17!), answering questions as a group and talking about hopes and hesitations. The big and little sisters also came up with secret handshakes while waiting to go to snack.
Meanwhile, Liana worked with another group of girls in the darkroom. They talked about some of the basics of photography, how the darkroom studio worked, and how to be safe in the space. Then they worked on creating "life-size" photogram portraits! We'll talk more about these next week...
After everyone got back together and had snack as a group, everyone headed into VisArts' letterpress studio. Jordan and Aimee Joyaux (VisArts Director of Education), talked to the girls about letterpress: its history, how it works and what they would be printing today. Each girl got to print a book cover for her soon-to-be-created journal. Girls will learn how to make their own hand-made journals that they will work in for the rest of the program.
While each girl and mentor printed, everyone was working in the next room on creating inspiration boards. The group first read a story called "Sanctuary" that talked about safe spaces in life. Big and little sisters talked about their own safe spaces and what made them feel that way. Then they filled out a worksheet with their mentors about themselves, what they want their new room to look like and how they want to work towards that goal. The inspiration boards were filled with favorite colors, plans, inspirations cut from magazines and all kinds of beautiful things.
Finally it was time for closing circle. Each girl said something they were thankful for and everybody said good night!
"I'm thankful for my family and friends"
"I'm thankful for my big sister"
"I'm thankful for SOHO"
"I'm thankful for getting to do cool things like letterpress"
Check out this awesome video of the girls watching the first impression get printed in letterpress:
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