Keeping with its vision of unlocking the power of education by helping youth meet their highest potential and to enhance their quality of life, NEED has recently introduced a new program that will offer teen mothers the necessary resources and support so that they “may have a bright future with better opportunities” and not become just another statistic.
In September, NEED, the nonprofit that has provided more than $24 million to youth since 1963, launched Future NEED Scholars, a program for African-American female mothers ages 13-19 and in grades 8-12 that will offer the support, mentors, resources and skills needed to ensure they successfully graduate high school and go on to a post secondary institution.
“We know this population (teen mothers) has a very high rate of school dropout and we want to have some targeted intervention to reduce that. But also to make sure that they don’t get just end at high school and go on to high school,” NEED President and CEO Marcia Sturdivant, PhD, said. “We know there is a connection with that and poverty; the higher the education you have, the more opportunity there is for economic stability. So the whole thing is designed to stop that cycle of poverty and dependency.”
The idea for Future NEED Scholars, which is funded by the PNC Charitable Trust, came after the organization looked at their data and student profiles, Sturdivant said, and began to see a trend.
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