|
Recognizing the challenges that girls of African descent face with issues of cultural displacement and positive cultural identification, Niambi Jaha-Echols was inspired in 2002 to write and self-publish a book entitled: “Project Butterfly: Supporting Young Women and Girls of African Descent through the Transitions of Life”. The book supports and encourages young women and girls through the changes and challenges of life using the life cycle of a butterfly as a wonderful model of transition. The book was re-published in 2008 and then again in 2013 to include a companion workbook.
The book became the foundation for a plethora of afterschool programs for girls in Chicago and in various programs across the country. In 2004, Niambi founded Camp Butterfly, a national non-profit organization headquartered in Chicago and a sister after school program, Project Butterfly (named after the book). |
|
|
Since their inception, Project Butterfly and Camp Butterfly, has served (literally) thousands of girls from various parts of the country and continue to champion their cause. Women have joined us as volunteers from Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Missouri, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, California, Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Georgia, Wisconsin, Belize, Jamaica and Ghana West Africa, and first generation from Haiti, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
There has also been considerable media interest in camp - with articles appearing on The Oprah Angel Network website, in Essence and Ebony Magazines, MSN.com, The Milwaukee Community Journal and The Chicago Tribune. The camp has been featured on Fox News Chicago, ABC7 Chicago, Fox News Milwaukee, National Public Radio and various local cable television shows in Illinois.
|
In 2006 Dr. GiShawn Mance defended her dissertation research on Project Butterfly with findings that both the programs that were based on the book and the 7-day residential Camp Butterfly experience, were central in enhancing the extent to which teenaged girls and women felt positively towards their ethnic group. Her findings not only supported the efficacy of the programs, but it also essentially provided credence that Project Butterfly conveyed the African cultural values that it purported to teach, and it increased both ethnic identity and cultural pride. (Click Here to learn more about Dr. Mance's findings)
Since then, Dr. Rashida Govan-Gyamfi also received her doctorate using the Project Butterfly model as well as becoming the founder of the Project Butterfly - New Orleans Chapter. www. ProjectButterflyNOLA.org Our Camp Song Written
|
|
|
|
|
|
Camp Butterfly's Mother & Daughter Camp 2015 (Philo, CA)
|
