President's Corner

Dear Friend:

According to an article published by the International Center for Research on Women entitled “We Need to Invest in the Voices of Adolescent Girls Worldwide to Win Gender Equality,”

Research unequivocally demonstrates that empowering girls and young women is key to achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals – reducing hunger and poverty…drastically reducing maternal and neo-natal mortality,strengthening livelihoods and fostering substantive and transformational gender equality. Girls can be powerful drivers of social change – yet funding that elevates them is scarce, and often doesn’t empower them to take leadership in determining their own futures. Investing in girls and young women is essential to creating a more just an equitable world – yet adolescent girls around the world often remain invisible, silenced and ignored.

Empowerment can be a critical lever for change in girls’ lives. How? By helping them to gain financial independence and acquire much needed leadership and social skills, thus improving their future prospects for participation in the labor force. It can also provide girls with more mobility, promote their confidence, strengthen their social networks, and improve their health outcomes. As their lives improve, so does the well-being of their families, their communities, and ultimately, the world.

So where does I CAN SOAR, Inc., come in? As an educational service, we endeavor to close the gap between dependency and independence by addressing issues and topics that today’s young women face. We will tackle three of what we consider as the most important issues, pertaining to basic life and leadership skills which are:

                    FINANCIAL LITERACY, SOCIAL ISSUES AND HEALTH

I CAN SOAR, Inc. will host 30+ young ladies at an Annual Training and Activities Weekend Retreat where they will receive intense training and instruction on the three main subject areas above and others, as well as participate in fun, outdoor activities, such as zip lining, horseback riding, kayaking, and archery. They will also participate in team building and bonding activities with other young ladies with the goal to gain lifelong friends. We will work in collaboration with the foster care community, local school districts, youth counselors, church youth leaders and young women identified by other organizations and invite them to participate at these training and weekend sessions. We will also conduct quarterly workshops with qualified, licensed professionals, on such topics as Effective Communication Skills between Mothers and Daughters, Human Trafficking and Internet Safety Awareness and Bullying and Cyper-Bullying, and other relevant topics.

Would you help us change the trajectory of a young lady’s life? Your financial support of $50 will finance the fee for two girls to attend the weekend retreat, $100 will help cover materials and food costs for 10 girls at a quarterly workshop. And of course, increased donations will allow more girls to participate who may not have funds to attend these unique, educational opportunities.

To donate, please make your check payable to: I CAN SOAR, Inc. and forward to 25920 Iris Ave., Suite 13A #157, Moreno Valley, CA 92551 or you may ZELLE your contribution to: icansoarinc@gmail.com. We are a 501 (c)(3) organization and your contribution is completely tax deductible. Our tax ID number is 83-3525147.

If you have any questions or would like further information, please feel free to call me personally at (951) 440-2493.

Thank you for your consideration and assistance in our efforts to ensure that our next generation of young ladies are ready to embark on adulthood with basic life and leadership skills and knowledge in “adulting” that few young women receive.

Many Blessings,

Wanda Scruggs

President/CEO

I CAN SOAR, Inc.