College Underground Magazine Issue 4 | Page 13

Page 13
POV — THE WOMEN OF FADIA By : Terrence Hazly
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with the talented and gifted leaders of an underrated organization based on reaching the embattled female youth in the Summit County community . Conceived by Yvette Thompson , Fadia ( Arabic for “ protect others ”) as an organization has existed for two years but the vision had been nurtured since Yvette had been 18 .
Founded in the basement of her house while running Miracle Child daycare upstairs , she opened up her home to create an operation devoted to helping better and save the lives young women .
Her counter-part and a lead woman for the organization , Octavia Solomon , has been involved for nine months . She has adapted and maintained a role of mentoring and redirection to help guide , problem solve and encourage the young women of the program . Our conversations lead me inside to finding out true awareness and humanitarianism does still exist . Not only by working within the organization with the ladies , the also schedule outside events such as volunteering at the battered women ’ s shelter . They have what is called a “ Purple Party ” during October supporting domestic violence awareness month which is a gala in ballroom attire and they split the door with the battered women ’ s shelter and the other half goes to Fadia for the girls need in the program . They offer “ Speak up , Speak out ” every March , events with live entertainment and talent shows to keep the morale of the youth up beat , giving them something to look forward to . Fadia is also ready to start HIV and Lupus awareness . The organization is also working on a documentary movie “ Real Stories about the Girls .”
It was after her grandmothers passing that Yvette took the physical steps in realizing her passion with a group of friends and she hasn ’ t looked back . Before Fadia , she was around the wrong crowd of friends that she didn ’ t have anything in common with which lead to being involved in bad situations , she has witnessed the abuse , she has seen troubled side of how young girls carry themselves the wrong way looking for love and attention with no one focusing on providing a positive activities to get them away from that lifestyle and out of that mindset . This has leads her to believe that “ most organizations are limited , every