{"id":1712,"date":"2017-01-30T16:39:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T22:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2020-10-18T13:01:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T19:01:18","slug":"mwc-wins-novo-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/2017\/01\/30\/mwc-wins-novo-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"MWC wins $300,000 grant to work with young women of color"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jackson State University\u2019s Margaret Walker Center has received a $300,000 grant from the\u00a0NoVo Foundation<\/a>\u00a0to work with young women of color throughout the South in conjunction with Natalie Collier and the Lighthouse project.<\/p>\n

Founded by a gift from businessman Warren Buffett, the\u00a0NoVo Foundation<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 \u201cNovo\u201d the latin word that can mean to make anew, refresh, revive, change, alter, invent \u2013 states that their mission is to foster a transformation from a world of domination and exploitation to one of collaboration and partnership, according to the foundation\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Lighthouse project\u2014to be housed at the Margaret Walker Center on the campus of Jackson State University\u2014targets southern girls with a responsibility \u201cto be a revelatory, unflickering light for black girls and young women in the southern United States by providing a safe space and focused programming to address their personal, social and leadership development needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collier created and will direct\u00a0The Lighthouse\u00a0project. Collier has spent the past five years doing young women\u2019s leadership development, curriculum design and grant making at the Children\u2019s Defense Fund \u2013 Southern Regional Office and Southern Rural Black Women\u2019s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Natalie approached me about the participation of the Margaret Walker Center in this project,\u201d notes Center Director, Dr. Robert Luckett, \u201cI jumped at the opportunity.\u00a0 It seemed like a perfect fit for us and our work to promote the African-American experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The renewable grant gives Collier the opportunity to incubate and leverage her experiences working with young women and girls in the South to focus more fully on creating a more balanced, equitable world by changing social attitudes, relationships and institutions that perpetuate injustice for girls and young women, especially black southern ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so fortunate to have this opportunity to expand the work I\u2019ve been doing for the past several years\u2014affirming girls and young women through the CDF and SRBWI,\u201d Collier says. \u201cI look forward to learning more, teaching more and partnering with individuals, organizations and institutions committed to the success and uplift of girls and young women, who are the backbones of so many of our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Collier sees it, \u201ca falsehood has pervaded American culture as fact: Girls are fine. Because of this, girls and young women are too often neglected to focus on boys and young men, and this is especially the case when the conversation focuses on girls of color.\u201d She continues, \u201cThis negligence provides a false choice and assumes that advocates, activists, organizers, and thought leaders aren\u2019t sharp enough to focus on both. What is certain is girls are not and cannot be fine if no one is paying attention to them. The Lighthouse will redress this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jackson State University\u2019s Margaret Walker Center has received a $300,000 grant from the\u00a0NoVo Foundation\u00a0to work with young women of color throughout the South in conjunction with Natalie Collier and the Lighthouse project. Founded by a gift from businessman Warren Buffett, the\u00a0NoVo Foundation\u00a0\u2013 \u201cNovo\u201d the latin word that can mean to make anew, refresh, revive, change, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2215,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions\/2215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}