Many social and economic barriers hold back Mississippi women every day, limiting their opportunities to succeed. The Women’s Foundation of Mississippi’s mission is to help them thrive. Because when women thrive, so does our state. They award grants to programs that drive social change – like decreasing unplanned pregnancies through medically accurate, evidence-based sexual education, or helping mothers graduate in order to provide a better quality of life for their children.
We’ve rounded up some of the 2020 grantees below!
Healthy Girls, Powerful Women, Strong Communities | Spring Initiative
Healthy Girls, Powerful Women, Strong Communities will build on the impactful work Spring has established in the last 8 years while further enhancing its effectiveness. The intervention efforts Spring students receive on a daily and long-term basis are designed to provide them with access to opportunity, a vision for a positive future, access to preventive health care services, and high-quality sex education, regardless of what obstacles they are facing.
Spring provides regular, evidence-based sex education across all ages to ensure that students understand for themselves why it is important to value and protect their bodies, and feel confident in defining and maintaining the boundaries they choose to set for themselves.
Visit their website for more info.
EmpowerHER | MSU Health Promotion & Wellness
The Department of Health Promotion and Wellness proposes a sexual health empowerment program to meet the needs of our college students by providing campaigns, programs, lunch and learns, workshops, and free and/or reduced STI testing.
The program would include health service volunteers, graduate assistants, student association health and wellness council, Greek life council, and athletes to assist with the campaigns. Health Promotion and Wellness will utilize students to help promote the initiatives.
Visit their website for more info.
Mobile Reproductive Health in Mississippi Delta | Plan A Health
Plan A mobile clinics bring health care directly to underserved communities, with an emphasis on improving sexual and reproductive health. The clinics will serve all people, regardless of insurance status, income, or location, and ensure access to affordable, quality, and compassionate care.
The first Plan A mobile health clinic will serve the Mississippi Delta region, beginning with five counties: Sunflower, Leflore, Holmes, Bolivar, and Washington. The Plan A mobile clinics are primarily focused on providing care to women aged 16-44 in the targeted communities. Plan A seeks to provide care to uninsured and underinsured community members.
STD Risk Reduction for African American Girls and Women | Institute for the Advancement of Minority Health
The Institute for the Advancement of Minority Health will create two community advisory boards (CAB) of Black females ages 15-19 and Black females ages 20-24 to develop strategies for the prevention and reduction of STDs, HIV and viral hepatitis in Hinds County. They will also create a network of community network of health, non-health, and social services providers to facilitate the linkage of Black females ages 15-24 in the target area to HIV/STD, HPV screening, information and referrals, behavioral risk counseling, and other social support services.
They will work to reduce the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases among Black females ages 15-24 in the target area, as well as create culturally sensitive and strategically planned communication and marketing campaign designed to provide information about strategies for reducing and preventing STDs among Black females between the ages of 15-24 years of age in Hinds County.
VIsit their website for more information
The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects
The Lighthouse creates programming focused on sexual reproductive health and relationship wellbeing targeted at high-school and college-aged girls/young women and boys/young men. The organization’s focus is the holistic health of the community and the relationship of the many types of people who live therein.
Visit their website for more info.
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FactNotFiction is a project of The Women’s Foundation of Mississippi and the Mississippi State Department of Health. Our goal is to make sure Mississippi teens get medically accurate information about sex. What you do with your body is your choice. But whatever you do, don’t do it in the dark. Visit The Women’s Foundation of Mississippi’s website for more information.
