Pomona Unified Conference Aims to Empower Female Students, Promote Positive Living

The Pomona Unified School District’s Pomona Peer Resources program is holding its second annual Young Women’s Empowerment Conference for 250 eighth-, ninth- and 10th-grade female students to promote positive living and college and career goals. Freshman students from Pomona Catholic High School will also participate in the event to be held Dec. 5 at the Village at Indian Hill Conference & Technology Center, 1460 E. Holt Ave.

The event will include 30 workshops focusing on healthy minds, bodies and souls. The healthy minds workshops will include “Women in STEM,” “Financial Literacy,” “Working in Health Care and Law Enforcement” and “College Access,” among others. The healthy bodies workshops will include “Drug and Alcohol Safety,” “Gang Prevention,” “Diet and Nutrition,” “Learning to Love Yourself” and “Your Body and You.” The healthy souls workshop will include “Identifying Healthy Relationships,” “Dealing with Grief,” “Standing up to Bullying,” “Immigrant Youth Issues” and more.

Pitzer College Professor Roberta Espinoza will deliver the morning keynote. The lunch keynote speaker will be Pomona City Councilwoman Debra Martin. Singer/songwriter Meghan Tonjes will close the conference.

Pomona Peer Resources is part of a comprehensive (academic, social and personal) approach to peer intervention. Organized in April 1999, the action group draws from the rich 20-year peer intervention history at PUSD. PPR works with the middle and high schools to provide more than 20 individual peer intervention programs, which include community-based activities that address the issues and needs of PUSD’s adolescents.