The Women & Kids Learning Together Summer Camp, a community outreach and service learning project of the Women’s Studies Program, is a week-long day camp for low-income women and their children in Warren and surrounding counties. WKLT is now in its sixth year.  Women and their children take classes and participate in workshops and team-building activities designed to strengthen self-esteem, encourage self-reflection, and promote the exploration of opportunities for life-long education. The camp takes place primarily on Western Kentucky University’s campus and incorporates the arts, education and wellness, and practical living issues. Participants who complete the camp are eligible for a special WKLT scholarship to help them achieve their goals in higher education.  Since most activities will be on WKU’s campus, the women have “the university experience,” encouraging them to pursue long-term educational goals.

The camp features a kids, too program with similar opportunities for participants’ children ages 6-14.  The kids’ camp is designed to encourage healthy self-expression, appreciation for the arts, and awareness of life-long learning opportunities.  We often think of the kids’ camp as a concurrent camp for the participants’ children run by qualified WKU students, guest speakers, and workshop hosts.

The camp specifically serves low-income women and their children.  In order to participate, women must qualify for food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, or be participants in a welfare-to-work program. Introduced after the 2007 camp, the Catherine Coogan Ward Scholarship Challenge provides funds for any camp graduate who wishes to pursue her higher education goals.  The funds can be used for any school in the region including Western Kentucky University, or any school in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. 

Need Statement: Warren and neighboring counties are in great need of many projects and efforts that serve low-income women and their children. Women & Kids Learning Together is the only project situated on WKU’s campus. Overall, Kentucky ranks as the 3rd worst state for women, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.  The Governor’s Task Force on the Economic Status of Kentucky’s Women (2002) also found that Kentucky ranks 47th in measures of women’s economic and social autonomy, ranks 49th in the percentage of women with 4 or more years of college, and ranks 50th in health and well-being of its women.  It is evident from these numbers that women in this area are in need of assistance and encouragement.

Objectives and Outcome: Our objective is to improve the educational, economic, and personal circumstances of low-income and under-educated women in Warren and neighboring counties.  Women & Kids Learning Together encourages participants through empowerment activities that enhance self-expression, self-awareness, and self-esteem.  The women have an improved sense of their abilities for work and education through the camp’s workshops, classes, and sessions offered by WKU professors and other speakers. Further, information that they can take with them will help them plan their long-term education goals.  Another objective of this camp is to create an understanding among the women about the importance of civic engagement.  Through sessions such as the conversation with Mayor Elaine Walker, the participants will learn how their involvement in their community can make a difference and produce change.  The children, in the kids, too portion of the camp, will be immersed in artistic, creative, scientific, and educational activities, including setting and attaining long-term educational goals. 

Specifically, our objectives are:

• –    to encourage a better understanding of the opportunities for higher education,
• –    to promote civic engagement and community involvement,
• –    to improve self-esteem through self-discovery workshops in the arts.

Number of Participants Served:  Last year’s WKLT served thirty-one women and twenty-four children, the highest number of participants in camp history. Since its inception, seventy-five women, seventy-five children, and over forty WKU students have participated in camp. As of October 2009, sixteen women have enrolled at WKU, six in GED classes, and two in the local college of cosmetology.

For more information contact nicholas.simmons419@wku.edu or (270) 745-6995