Nonprofit Provides Support To Underprivileged Young Moms Who Want To Pursue An Education
Ashley McCann
According to Generation Hope, one in five undergraduate college students today is a parent, and yet they're ten times less likely to graduate.
Fewer than two percent of teen moms who have a baby before the age of 18 earn a college degree before the age of 30.
Generation Hope is doing their part to change these statistics.
Photo: Generation Hope is a nonprofit founded by Nicole Lynn Lewis in 2010, that provides support to underprivileged teen moms who want to pursue higher education.
Not only do they provide support for the parent, but they also help their children as well through holistic, two-generation programming.
The Generation Hope Scholar Program provides teen parents with mentoring, tuition assistance, a peer community, and other services to help them earn their degrees.
Photo: Students in the Scholar program with children younger than six are also eligible for their early childhood program, Next Generation Academy. This program provides literacy, academic, and social-emotional supports so that the children of their students are ready for kindergarten.
While in the Scholar program, students also receive trainings on a variety of topics including life balance and academic planning, mental health supports, and career preparation.
"Generation Hope surrounds teen/student parents and their children with a network of individuals who invest in them emotionally and financially because we know that anyone can succeed when someone believes in them," they wrote on their website.
Photo: Generation Hope is doing their part to help, and the numbers speak for themselves.
61 percent of Generation Hope Scholars earn a degree within six years, on par with the national average for all college students. 89 percent of their Scholar graduates are employed full time and/or enrolled in a graduate studies program within six months of graduating. Lastly, 100 percent of children scored "on track" on the ASQ-2 Social Emotional developmental screening tool after two years in Next Generation Academy.
Learn more about this incredible nonprofit in the video below and click here to visit their website.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x9gZLm5VWg
