Girls Athletic Leadership School (GALS) provides a free middle school education to at-risk girls living within 2 miles of the Las Vegas Strip. GALS students live below the national poverty level and are routinely exposed to violence. GALS provides a safe and supportive education environment to learn self-advocacy and obtain a high quality education to prepare for college. The purpose of this project is to provide educational tools to raise academic proficiency.
Las Vegas tops the nation in homeless youth and sex trafficing. Girls growing up in Las Vegas are vicitims of sexual abuse, molestation and violence every day. Girls growing up in poverty and in unstable homes are at a very high risk of becoming a part of Las Vegas' 40,000 sex worker industry. Nevada is bottom in the nation for academic performance. Nevada's students are failing to meet national academic standards and girls are the very bottom of this.
GALS is a free middle school that provides a safe and supportive environment for girls in Las Vegas to learn empowerment, self advocacy, life skills and recieve a high quality education that prepares them for college. The school provides trauma informed yoga instruction and counselor services to assist girls in dealing with their trauma. The school is located just 2 miles from the Las Vegas strip and provides a significant contrast to the Vegas scenary GALS students are used to.
GALS expects to graduate over 100 students each year and anticipates over 90% of those students will enter college and be the first person in their families to graduate college. These students will have the confidence and life skills needed that will help prevent them from becoming a part of the Las Vegas sex industry, joning gangs and teen pregnancy.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
