STORIES OF IMPACT | Jamaya S.
How One Community Empowers Her to Speak Up in Others
As an incoming freshman at Central Park East High School, rock climbing was the furthest thing from Jamaya’s mind. It is somewhat ironic, then, that just three years later it has become such an indelible part of her life.
Jamaya is going into her fourth year of Young Women Who Crush—a nine-month long rock climbing and leadership development program serving young women and gender expansive youth from NYC public schools. It is an experience that has opened her mind to new perspectives and empowered her to lead the push for change in her own community and society at large. When Jamaya looks back on herself, she sees just how much the program has helped her grow.
“I wasn’t always willing to have important conversations or advocate for the needs of myself or other people in my community. But having those conversations with the rock climbing team pushed me to be that leader. And I translated that into the social justice program I’m in now. Rock climbing helped with that. Just having important conversations. I was like, wait, I could talk about this in my school. And that led me to join and now I’m one of the co-leaders in that program.”
“I’m not only more confident in my skills and ideas, but I’m more confident in what I could do for my community and the people in my community. I can advocate for them. I’m going to fight to see the change that I want. I’m a little activist now. I love it.”
That sense of empowerment and community is at the heart of everything Young Women Who Crush does. Girls like Jamaya are given a warm and welcoming space for dialogue around issues related to gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and other dimensions of identity.
“We’ve had important conversations about being a woman in America today—being a Black woman in America, being a Muslim woman in America, being an Asian woman in America. I know it’s a sports program but they really made it open to where we could speak about whatever we’re feeling at that moment. It makes us more aware of what’s going on in society. Outside of rock climbing, I’m more willing to advocate for women of color from different backgrounds because rock climbing gave me the opportunity to see that.”
The enormous sense of trust, support, and communication needed for those discussions to happen is a result of the environment that YYWC fosters—one that the program constantly reinforces through a sport that requires those very same elements to succeed. When Jamaya climbs or co-leads a session, she never feels like she is alone.
Jamaya S. at The Cliffs at LIC. Photo Credit: Chris Vultaggio
“Knowing that I’ll be supported no matter what is just really comforting. Because I’m like, okay, I might mess up. But then it’s like, we laugh, and I continue again. And everyone’s just like, great job and then I just want to reciprocate that energy and be that same person for them.”
And while she still loves the climbing aspect of the program and the rush it gives her, learning how to climb, grip, belay, and toe-tap is only a small part of why it has become so important to her. Climbing is the medium for a much deeper sense of self-discovery and personal growth, and Young Women Who Crush has made it possible.
“I’m not only more confident in my skills and ideas, but I’m more confident in what I could do for my community and the people in my community. I can advocate for them. I’m going to fight to see the change that I want. I’m a little activist now. I love it.”