Newsletter
Director’s Report
This is a special issue of the Taking the Reins newsletter featuring some of the wonderful photography and insightful writing being done by our teens. I think what these photographs, poems and short prose convey is that getting to know a horse and learning how to ride and care for it is a momentous occasion for these girls. Read the riders’ journal excerpts
Taking the Reins inspires girls to look at themselves and the world around them in new ways. This process opens doors and sometimes makes one realize that what they may have been satisfied with in the past will no longer suffice. As one teen, Zaida, candidly wrote, “On the weekend me and my family did absolutely nothing but watch TV and play video games. It was so boring. I felt like eating all day long.” In another passage she writes, “to be the only one in my family to actually not be scared of something is the best.” This thought gives me hope not only for Zaida but for all the teens we work with. Zaida has overcome her fears and delights in her successes. She has now experienced her strength and her bravery; and, more importantly, she has tasted the satisfaction of being active and engaged, of having some control over her destiny. This is a huge accomplishment for a middle-school age girl. Zaida is not the only one who is home watching television or playing video games when not at Taking the Reins. We hear this time and time again because many of the teens we serve have little or no other activities available to them when they are off from school. Their parents are at work. Their neighborhoods are not equipped with parks and often the streets are considered unsafe. Watching television to pass the time is a reality for many kids.
It is my hope that one day we will expand our programs and our facility to establish a Working Farm for Urban Girls. The Farm will be a place where girls can come every day when they are not in school, a place where instead of sitting on a couch and watching TV all day or playing video games, they can ride horses, care for animals, grow a garden and learn how to cook the food they grow, design a web page, make photographs and creatively express their ideas and feelings. A place where they not only dream about their futures but are given the opportunities to shape their destinies. Tatiana, another one of our teen writers, believes “that wishes can come true, and that anything’s possible as long as you fight and work for it.” I think we would all agree with Tatiana that with enough hard work many things are possible and wishes can come true. I’m wishing for the “Working Farm” and I know with your help it will one day be a reality.