Halfway through the school year, an eighth-grade girl at Mason/Clark Middle School in East St. Louis, Illinois learned that she was pregnant. Immediately, her friends in the group they call “Ladies of Distinction,” a support group for select eighth-grade girls at the school, got to work in organizing a “pregnancy drive” to get her the baby gear she would need.
Najjuwah Walden, the Washington University social work student who started the support program, said the school initially worried that the drive would send the wrong message about the benefits of pregnancy.
But Walden said the girls stood strong in their mission, saying, “This is my friend, and she needs something. So I’m going to ask people if they have an extra car seat or baby wipes, since where else is she going to get it?”
The pregnancy drive was one of many projects the girls participated in this past year, including museum visits, support group circles, meditation and playwriting.
Walden established the Ladies of Distinction program at Mason/Clark this year, when she was assigned to work there by Washington University as part of her social work studies. Largely a restorative circle, the group of girls meet three times a week to discuss the issues they face in their lives and come up with strategies to solve them.
“When I came here, it was originally to work in sex education,” said Walden. “But when I got here, Mr. Williams became my supervisor, and he had a group already with all boys which was called the Gentleman’s Club.”
Walden noticed that there was no equivalent support group for girls. “So I asked him, you have this amazing group for boys, what are you doing for the girls?” she said.
And thus, Ladies of Distinction began with about a dozen eighth-grade girls who were selected to meet with Walden a few times a week.
“They picked us because, we’ve been going to this school since sixth grade,” said Tamyjah Gibson, one of the students in the group. “And we’ve had problems in the sixth grade year and the seventh-grade year. All girl-drama.”
Dean of Students Marco Williams, who was Walden’s supervisor on the project, said, “They’ve really matured over the past three years.”
Five of the group members who gathered in his office for an interview with the St. Louis American – Victoria Murray, Tamyjah Gibson, Damiya Brown, Brandy Johnson, and Trameria Jones – laughed and agreed.
In Ladies of Distinction meetings, the girls begin with recaps of the week. Next are “case studies” based on issues they faced that week, like conflict with teachers, or problems at home. The students come up with a story about someone experiencing that issue, then give that made-up person advice. They call it “Ask Ladies of Distinction.”
The stories might sound like this: “So you have this person, and he’s in middle school. Let’s call him Tony. He goes to Mason/Clark, and he’s having issues at home. His father is beating on him, so we’ll ask, who does Tony talk to?”
“A common theme was violence,” Walden said. “Tamyjah, for example, her father was murdered a couple of years ago. He was shot 50 times and found by the FedEx guy. So we did a case study on that.”
The capstone of the year was a field trip called “For Us By Us.” It was designed to “highlight the contributions of black women within the arts, empowering the girls to dream big without bounds while living non-apologetically as black girls,” said Walden.
“It was the Blues Museum,” enthused one student. “We sang! It’s like a singing booth, where you go in and sing.”
“And phones, you can pick up, and hear people singing,” another girl cut in.
They also visited the Missouri History Museum’s “#1 in Civil Rights” exhibit because, Walden said, “I want them to be able to see themselves in history.”
The field trip’s purpose was to show that historical figures like Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks were “regular women.”
“Before they became known, these were all girls who were in their position,” Walden said. “I wanted to make what they accomplished tangible to them. Maybe she wasn’t from East St. Louis, but I’m pretty sure she went through some of the same hardships, if not more, and she was able to overcome, so you can too.”
Being in this supportive space and seeing the women they could become has certainly changed the girls’ worldviews, but the future of the group is uncertain. The district, according to Walden, is unwilling to fund it because its holistic nature makes it difficult to demonstrate that the program actually improves grades or truancy rates.
However, she hopes Ladies of Distinction continues after she leaves to complete her final year of training for her Masters of Social Work.
Walden has high hopes for participants continuing their education. She connected them with programs like Upward Bound for next year to serve them in a similar capacity.
The fact that every girl in the Ladies of Distinction program is moving on to high school is a success, too. Even the girl who became pregnant halfway through her eighth-grade year will graduate after attending summer school.
In high school, the Ladies of Distinction will use the coping and collaboration strategies they learned this year.
“I became more mature,” Trameria Jones said. “I’m learning how to just let things go, and not react to everything.”
