Houston-based nonprofit helps build young girls’ futures with STEM

HOUSTON. A stone’s throw from NASA, in a lab room at the University of Houston at Clear Lake, Loretta Williams recalls a question nine years ago for a former educator and sound engineer.

“I recorded a song called “Superlady” and it came out 13 or 14 years ago… I traveled the country, having fun, developing women and ladies as Superlady. And we returned to Houston. We have started to conduct these professional development trainings. Women and fathers brought their daughters. And so I talked to the girls. I would encourage them – talk to them about STEM and education. And then an idea came up… how can we be Super Lady without raising Super Girls?” Williams said.

So Williams started talking about the girls and the opportunities they weren’t getting, especially in STEM.

As a former teacher, she said that when she looked around, she simply did not see the people who represented her.

“It didn’t look like me. That’s for sure. It didn’t look like women of color,” Williams said. “We asked, ‘How are we going to change the economy for the new majority?’ We need to transfer the skills to them as early as possible,” Williams said.

In 2016, she was granted non-profit status for her SUPERGirls SHINE foundation, an organization dedicated to developing, creating and equipping underprivileged girls and women through mentoring, internships, scholarships and entrepreneurship to strengthen the workforce and career advancement.

She helps raise girls and women who can be role models for their peers and communities.

“If you teach a subject, I teach it in a day. But you see, we are trying to teach them to eat all their lives. So we have to teach them how to fish,” Williams said.

And that’s exactly what Williams is doing through boot camp-style days scheduled throughout the year, with girls in elementary school and up getting the opportunity to learn in computer labs and real world applications.

Fourth grader Dahlia Holmes has been participating in the program for several years. She is learning programming which can be applied to her dream of becoming a designer.

“I like coding because it includes math and science,” Holmes said.

Her mum and dad, Shunta and Darrell, also have two older sons, and they recognize the opportunities this foundation gives their daughter that she might not otherwise have.

“I think people naturally assume that boys will be involved in things like science or STEM or sports. Whereas with girls, in many cases, opportunities are either not provided or harder to find,” Durrell said.

Opportunities SUPERGirls SHINE mentor and trainee Marva Elavik helps develop. She is originally from Lebanon and has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and a master’s degree in food science.

She saw with her own eyes how women who like her lessons affect girls, both students and ordinary people.

“I feel like they want to be like me, they want to do something to be in mine, in what I do,” Elavik said.

Alief ISD director Kelly Upshaw attended the event with over 30 of her students. She said she was glad to see the impact it could have on them.

“Here’s a road you can take and just give them a chance to expose because you can’t know what’s out there if you haven’t seen it.”

Right now, the foundation has three “contact” days for girls aged 7 to 12 and a whole year for middle and high school girls. But her main focus will be on partnerships with companies and individuals that can impact even greater opportunities for these girls and women in the future.

“Invite us to your offices, invite us to your ERGs, invite us to be part of your charity work,” Holmes said. your non-profit organization so that we become a budget item, not a sponsored monthly payment or an opportunity to write a check.”

For more information on how to help, visit the SUPERGirls SHINE website.

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