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Causes: Children & Youth, Civil Rights, Employment, Family Services for Adolescent Parents, Job Training, Women, Womens Rights, Youth Development
Mission: Advocates for Adolescent Mothers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and social enterprise committed to empowering young parents by providing them with the tools, resources, and support needed to break the cycle of poverty, establish prosperity, and prevent child abuse.
Results: Advocates for Adolescent Mothers is most proud of our Educational Empowerment Program due to its ability to empower young moms to break the poverty cycle. Through the Educational Empowerment Program, young mothers have the opportunity to earn monetary grants, receive mentoring, and participate in bi-monthly workshops throughout the academic year that impart knowledge about managing the roles of being a parent and college student. Our participants’ accomplishments have included becoming college graduates with bachelor’s and master’s degrees; beginning promising careers where their incomes have resulted in them escaping poverty; achieving homeownership; and marriage. Advocates for Adolescent Mothers has supported young parent students by providing backpacks, school supplies, and toiletries to hundreds of students. We introduced young mom high school students to the arts, via our Advocacy Through Art program, also providing them with stipends over the summer of 2016 (grant funded program). Through our Holiday Drive Program, we collect and donate coats and toys to families headed by young parents at Christmas time.
Target demographics: Young parents between the ages of 13-24.
Geographic areas served: Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.
Programs: Active: Educational Empowerment Program (Scholarship/Grant), Holiday Drive Program, Teen Parent Stable Housing Study Developing: Housing, Childcare