Can you share a bit about your background and how it influences your support for women? What challenges have you faced personally that have shaped your approach to supporting other women?

At 17 I became a teen Mom. That experience has inspired my life’s work at the Alex House Project. We are a lifeline for the teen Moms of NYC/Brooklyn. I am the Founder and Executive Director of The Alex House Project. My career in helping women and girls expand as far back as the year 2000 when I worked at the Center for Family Life as a residential counselor providing support services to young girls in a residential setting. Moving onward I began working with the Educational Alliance providing residential case management to chemically dependent women of color. Working my way across the spectrum, I accepted the challenge as an “Upstate Prison Based Coordinator” with the Women's Prison Association in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. There I would conduct pre-release intakes and assessments for incarcerated women living with HIV/AIDS, pre-release coaching, education, and support for discharging. Supervised the daily operations of the peer-inmate prison-based HIV educational program, providing ongoing training and supervision of inmate peer educators and assisting in group facilitation as needed along with providing linkage to care for incarcerated women living with HIV/AIDS.

Who are the women who have inspired you on your journey of uplifting others?

One of the many women who have inspired me is my grandmother, sleep in heavenly peace. She taught me integrity, women-hood, the ability to love unconditionally, and to appreciate people authenticity. As a young scholar, Ms. Beatrice Bryd showed me the importance of giving back to your community. Jill Eisenhard, my former boss and founder of the Red Hook Initiative believed in me from the first day she hired me. She clearly just asked me the question and has been my mentor and supporter since 2006. All three women are dear to my heart and now looking back, I am glad they saw what I could not see in me. That’s what I try to translate into my organization from my staff to the people we serve.

What initiatives or projects are you currently involved in to support women in your community?

In 2006, while employed by the Red Hook Initiative, a community-based non-profit, Red Hook resident, I was asked to identify a need in my neighborhood and build a program for it. Having been a young mother myself, I recognized that many of the young mothers around the local housing projects had little guidance and support. I felt a desire to provide these teen moms with support, knowledge, and skills. In February 2013, my vision became a reality. The Alex House Project launched as its own nonprofit to provide support for young pregnant mothers in the Red Hook Houses and surrounding communities. Under my leadership, The Alex House Project has transformed the lives of young parents and their children by developing structured programs that specifically deal with creating a new self-perception and a new atmosphere for parenting. Through this holistic approach, young parents create, disseminate, and lead the programs here at TAHP. Eleven years strong, I am continuously reshaping and revamping ways to elevate the organization. There is no “one” initiative, it could never be.

How do you navigate societal expectations and stereotypes while advocating for women's empowerment?

We know that poverty, race, and early pregnancy are connected: in neighborhoods with higher percentages of residents living below the federal poverty line, teen pregnancy rates are higher. We are dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty in communities of color by giving young mothers the skills they need to defy racist expectations. Our staff supports participants through the process of obtaining a high school diploma, enrolling in college, and securing employment. A brighter future for mothers is a brighter future for the next generation. In addition to developing partnerships with external employers, TAHP embeds professional opportunity into our program, training graduates for internal positions as trainers. And we promote economic viability by offering participants a subsidy, so moms don’t have to choose between earning and learning parenting skills.

What impact have your efforts had on the lives of the women you have supported?

All peer leaders and program participants identify as people of color. Alex House thus represents a bottom-up response to systemic injustice rooted in the collective knowledge and resources possessed by oppressed communities and deploying that knowledge to strengthen those communities. A key element in this approach is our peer-leadership model, which ensures that mentors understand the specific experiences of young parents in difficult situations, including immigrant, homeless, and LGBTQ+ youth, because they share those experiences. The model ensures that our project scales in an organic way, reflecting and drawing upon already-existing community networks; that healing takes place in spaces shaped by participants; and that our trainers possess the cultural and linguistic competency we know are a prerequisite for genuinely reaching the populations we serve. Ultimately, our work transforms communities by giving access to housing; education; stable, paid employment, and all the other resources that help participants to maintain healthy, fulfilling families and give them the ability to serve as role models in the same way that our founder and program staff have done.

How can others best support your efforts?

We are asking our community to help us build-out our space for young parents and their families that will have an actual place to congregate, learn and grow, restoring the family-style element of TAHP’s program which is critical to its success and has been missing since the pandemic. We are so excited about the potential for growth that this milestone represents! There is one challenge: since we have always worked in borrowed or furnished co-working space, we own very little. We are grateful for any support our community can give.

Click here for The Alex House Project's Amazon Wishlist!

Anything else you'd like to share?

The Alex House Project is 11 years old this year and I am proud of all we’ve done to help some of NYC's most vulnerable families. We are so pleased to report that after an exhaustive search, The Alex House Project recently leased 5,632 square feet of space on the 4th floor at 9 Bond Street Brooklyn, NY. TAHP was 2023 semi-finalist for the Spark Prize, and finalist for National Grid’s Youth Spaces Competition. We have served over 600 families since founded. One fun fact, the Alex House Project is named after my son Alex! He is the website developer for the organization. My other son, Dajean went through the program as a young parent and received nurturing parenting skills, his HSE and employment. I was able to see the organization work from both ends.

Follow the organizations listed:

@alexhouseinc

@rhookinitiative

@edalliance

@wpa_nyc

This article is part of our International Women's Day series. Read about other inspiring women:

Uplifting Women Through Activism and Empowerment: Meet Natasha

Nurturing Creativity & Parenthood at Interlude Artist Residency: Meet Elsie

Breaking Barriers as a Female Firefighter: Meet Mindee

Breaking Barriers and Empowering Women: Meet Roshni