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Cake Therapy
Cake Therapy is a heartwarming and uplifting podcast that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. Hosted by Dr. Altreisha Foster, the passionate baker, entrepreneur and advocate behind Cake Therapy, this podcast is a delightful blend of inspiring stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode takes listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking.
Cake Therapy
When Black Girls Flourish: Neda Kellogg's Mission to Create Safe Spaces with Project Diva Intl.
What does it mean to create a truly sacred space for black girls in a world that seldom allows them to simply exist without explanation? Neda Kellogg, founder of Project Diva International, joins us to share how her personal journey through childhood trauma and homelessness sparked a mission that has transformed the lives of over 1,500 young Black women over the past 17 years.
Neda reveals the alarming 182% increase in suicide rates among black girls since 2001, highlighting why dedicated spaces for their emotional and mental wellbeing aren't just beneficial—they're life-saving. Through her innovative "I Am Method" (I Align Me), she guides girls to articulate their authentic selves and create vision maps that align with their truth. The results speak volumes: a 99% graduation rate and less than 1% teenage pregnancy among program participants.
We dive deep into the challenges of being a Black girl in today's world, from navigating educational systems that don't reflect their culture to finding therapy modalities that actually work for them. Neda's approach embraces both traditional and alternative healing practices, including baking therapy, boxing, swimming, and equestrian therapy. Her vision extends beyond temporary interventions—she's working toward building a Self-Mastery Campus in Minnesota where Black girls can truly belong while inviting others into a space designed with their needs at the forefront.
If you've ever wondered what's possible when we create environments where young people can show up in their "true alignment," this conversation will inspire you. For Black girls feeling lost or disconnected, Neda offers this powerful advice: "Identify a Black woman that you can, for real, be your true self with." Connect with Project Diva International at projectdiva.org to learn more about their transformative work.
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Welcome to the Cake Therapy Podcast a slice of joy and healing, with your host, dr Altricia Foster. This is a heartwarming and uplifting space that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. The conversations will be a delightful blend of inspirational stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode will take listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking. There's something here for everyone, so lock in and let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back to the Cake Therapy Podcast. I am your host, altricia Foster. Before we get into today's conversation, I want to say thank you to everyone who's listened to our podcast or kind of subscribed, who's left comments, who sent us messages here and there, and for downloading our, because you get your podcast directly to our app as well. So if you want to listen to the podcast earlier, I would advise you to download the app. I think it gets there a day or two before it hits Spotify and wherever else you get your podcast.
Speaker 2:Today's guest is a friend. She is a friend. She is a friend to many in the community. She is a stalwart. She is an advocate for women and girls in Minnesota and she has an amazing project called Project Diva International. She's been doing this for almost two decades and it's Ms Netta Kellogg. I am excited to speak with her. Stephanie sent me over her bio this morning and I want to share that with you. So, ms Netta, netta Kellogg, I call her Ms Netta.
Speaker 2:She has been doing this work, like I mentioned, for 17 years. Her journey is one of resilience, empowerment and transformation. Miss Netta experienced early childhood loss, where her mom was diagnosed with a mental illness when she was a young female, and from that you know how things tend to spiral. She became homeless, and you know, and had to really provide for herself. Her path, however, led her to a deep exploration of her own identity and history. This journey, she says, not only helped her reclaim her sense of self, but also inspired her to create Project Diva.
Speaker 2:The Project Diva International is dedicated to empowering Black girls from third to 12th grade. Through Project Diva, netta and her team guide these young women towards self-discovery, academic achievement and personal growth, all while fostering a strong sense of sisterhood and cultural pride. Ms Netta's work has impacted over 1,500 girls to date, providing them with the tools to see their limitless potential and change the narrative of their lives. We are excited, I am excited to have her on today to share the mission, the vision and for her, project Diva International. And you know what is our hope for the next generation of young Black women in Minnesota and across the world. So welcome Ms Nita Kellogg to the Cake Therapy Podcast.
Speaker 3:Welcome, nita, thank you for having me, dr Foster, I'm excited.
Speaker 2:I am. I am too excited to chat it up with you. Like you and I have had several conversations. I recorded your intro a couple of minutes ago and I was telling our listeners that we're friends, you know, and how welcoming you have been in our establishing our friendship and how supportive you have been and I suspect it's been. It's you, your personality, but then you've garnered that ability from interacting with so many women, you know, and girls over 20, almost 20 years, 17 years of Project Diva International. How are you doing today? I usually do like a mental health check-in. I know you do your power hour in the mornings. Tell us a little bit about your check, your mental health this morning.
Speaker 3:Yes, my mental health is. I'm good this morning. I'm well. I have been up for a while. I did get my power hour in this morning. It was looked a little different than it normally does, but I did make it happen, so I'm doing really good, thanks for asking.
Speaker 2:Share with our listeners the power hour and what it means to you.
Speaker 3:So Kia Allen of the love Initiative is our marketing and branding director and she created about five years ago this space for us as an organization meaning the girls in our organization as well as the women in our organization to make time for their day. So our focus areas are emotional, mental and financial health, and we were, we have been trying to figure out like how can we level set for our day so that we can all be emotionally well? And so what it is is we take an hour before we're supposed to wake up to just level set, and that could include whatever you need for your mental I mean your emotional health that morning, and the goal is to for our middle schoolers, for them to get up 30 minutes before high schoolers and adults an hour before. And again, it really is just to love on yourself before you let the world in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, love on yourself before you let the world in. And I am, you know. I've gotten to know you over the past couple of months and what I love about you the most is the many layers of Nita. There's so much to you, but I would like for you to share with our listeners a little bit about your personal and your educational journey, you know, becoming Miss Nita.
Speaker 3:Wow, so I give homage to my grandmothers. Both of my grandmother's names is Ruth, and so I call myself the truth, because I had two grandmas named Ruth and both of them were all from.
Speaker 3:I'm from Omaha, nebraska, and growing up both my grandmothers had 13 kids, like 13 on one side, 11 on the other, and I was the first grandchild and so I was able to grow up with my uncles and my aunts and witness my grandmothers handle their households like all those kids and me in their households, but then also the neighborhood, and so my education came from literally being in the being one of the kids that was like, hey, run this down to Mr Such and Such because he's an elder and he needs breakfast, or run this over to Miss Such and Such because she's got those three kids and they need dinner. And so I was able to, and I mean so I got to see it all. I got to see the good, I got to see the bad and I got to see the indifferent. And that is just a part of who I am because of the many personalities that I had to encounter growing up.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:You talk personalities that I had to encounter growing up. Yes, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say educational wise, I graduated high school, I attempted college, but I ended up being homeless at 18. And my full ride wasn't how can I say it my full ride. I couldn't afford even having a full ride. Basically, I didn't have what I needed to be able to make it to school successfully. Transportation wasn't there, money for food at school wasn't there, so I wasn't able to focus on that. I really had to go out into the workforce and get a job to take care of myself, and so my education has also come from connecting to people who have poured into me to help me understand how to run a business since I was young.
Speaker 2:So you talk about being homeless and I read a very personal story of yours, but you've also shared with me over coffee in the Minnesota women's press where you said losing your mother to mental illness at an early age and that significantly impacted you. So I'm assuming that your homelessness was connected to that loss. But talk a little bit more about the significant impacts of losing your mom to mental health.
Speaker 3:Wow that it still affects me to this day. My mother was a mom that was very involved as a mother until I was in seventh grade. She was a mother who communicated, so she didn't talk to me like a kid, she talked to me like a mini human being who was figuring it out with her who was figuring it out with her.
Speaker 3:And so I can we pause, I'm sorry. There we go. So, her having a mental breakdown as a seventh grader, I ended up going to like three seventh grade schools that year, as my mom figured out how to send us back to my father to raise us, while I didn't know what was going on with her and, of course, mental health wasn't talked about a lot back in those days. And so, just like figuring out life without her has number one led me to not feel like I'm going to be like her because that was a big thing for me, like OK, if she has these traits, am I going to have those traits? And so my emotional and my mental health have been very important to me, because it did lead me to homelessness. One, because my dad's house was not as loving as she was, and so by the time I hit 18, I didn't have to stay there anymore, and so I just chose to leave while they went to work one day, and so, in that though, I didn't have a plan. So it was. I had all of the tools to know that I was beautiful, to know that I could do things, but I didn't have a plan on how to pay bills or how to get on my feet, and so I ended up with a cousin that, after about two of those three years, took me up under her wing and let me stay in her basement while she taught me how to pay bills and then ushered me into my first apartment at 24. And so it was it has like, but part of that also was at 18, before I went into college or tried to do college.
Speaker 3:I had to go back to Omaha to try to find out where she was and what was going on with her.
Speaker 3:And when I came to Minnesota, she was functioning, she had a job, she had a car, she was living in her apartment. But I didn't know that, though Minnesota, she was functioning, she had a job, she had a car, she was living in her apartment, but I didn't know that, even though she was functioning, she still had the underlaying of the mental health issues. I also had a younger brother that I became a quote unquote mom to when this all transpired, that I left in Omaha to go find out where she was, and so we were still in high school or high school, and I just couldn't leave him in the same situation that I had left. So I went back home to make sure that he also was okay. And so definitely you know, the ripple effects of her challenges also became my challenges, which led me to founding Project Viva International to want to make sure that girls don't have those same challenges. They actually have women that can talk them through a plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I understand the fear that comes with having a parent with mental illness and thinking that, oh my God, I inherited those traits Because they're like me. Every day I'm like, I'm in a mental health check with my husband.
Speaker 3:I'm like I'm too a mental health check with my husband. I'm like I'm too quiet. Do I need to speak more Like?
Speaker 2:what's going to happen to me Because, like you know and our listeners know, I've been pretty transparent is that my mom is suffering stage four dementia right now and, oh my God, it's challenging. Nina in that same article, though you talk about growing up. Your education didn't reflect the contributions of people who actually looked like you. How did the lack of representation actually affect your own personal identity man.
Speaker 3:It's again. It still affects me to this day. Not having those of us who are willing to give back or reach back not even give back but reach back to support those that look like us once they understand something has been really challenging emotionally and mentally. It has made me how can I say it?
Speaker 3:It has made me definitely want to be more accessible to young ladies behind me, even young men, anybody who is showing me that they are inspired and motivated enough to want the information, but it really does. It has made me have to expand my thinking around that I just need a human that can actually get me to these next levels, versus somebody who actually looks like me, because it's not always available. And when I do get somebody that looks like me, I really cherish that time because I know how it's not.
Speaker 2:It's so rare For me it has been rare. Yeah, yeah, yeah, talk to us a little bit about how do you differentiate between reaching back and giving back?
Speaker 3:Reaching back to me, like right now I have mentees that I have maybe that have maybe approached me or that I have just seen in the community like, oh, she got it right. Let me let her know that I am here for her. Giving back I always equate giving back to like financials or volunteering type of a deal, and a lot of times I'm not looking to volunteer my time as much as it is an exchange. I'm pouring into you and I'm definitely gonna also need you to pour into me type of a deal. So it's a reciprocation for me when it's the reaching back and the giving back is when I do go and I actually give my time or exchange my time for an action or exchange my finances or finance my treasures for an action.
Speaker 2:You mentioned in the Minnesota that article that you know, growing up, your influence was not women like you or women of color. Let's talk about how. What does it mean to be a black girl in today's world? What is your view on that?
Speaker 3:Wow. My view is so. I always I've been going back to this statistic that suicide rates for Black girls is. It has been up 182% since 2001,. From 2001 to 2017. This does not include the COVID numbers or even after COVID numbers. So what I do know as being a black girl, but also working with over 5000 black girls over the last 17 years, is that we don't feel like there's a challenge with us, feeling like we belong anywhere in the world. It doesn't matter what country, it just is anywhere, and so those are national statistics. So what I do know as well is that in the United States, when our girls don't feel like they belong, they remove themselves from life.
Speaker 3:And so what that looks like is that there's so many challenges, like a lot of our girls don't have the language or the support to what they're going through and the layers and dynamics of parenting, especially now because there's a lot of parents who have their children doing so many things because it looks good and they're not checking on their young girls' mental or emotional health, because they also weren't checked on. They don't know what it looks like and to look busy looks like you're being somebody and a lot of people want to be somebody, and so what we've learned to do on Project Diva is slow everybody down, parents and girls, to really think about. Have you checked on your child, not how it was school, but how did that teacher treat you today? What did y'all talk about at school today? Treat you today, what did y'all talk about at school today? What does that mean for where you're going? Like really slowing down to communicate with them about how they are really doing throughout their days, every day?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, tell me what it is. What was the pivotal moment in your life that? What were the instructions that you received that you needed to start? You know Project Diva International. You know what inspired you to create the organization.
Speaker 3:So back at home in Omaha, nebraska, I had I was the go-getting girl, like I learned early that I didn't like to work for people and I ended up doing a string of entrepreneurial things to see where my thing was, and so I love doing hair, did hair out of the kitchen, like a lot of us have, because of course that's that part of our DNA and ended up going to hair school. My goal was to manage my salon and have women working with me in the salon and failed, highly failed.
Speaker 3:But what I learned was I was able to work for a middle school, volunteering my time to work with black girls around again, their emotional and their mental and emotional health, and so when they finished their sessions with me their six to eight week sessions with me then I blessed them with coming over to the salon and having services, and that was fun. It was like it really fulfilled me. I also was a businesswoman as well, and so a year later I ended up moving to Minnesota and it landed at a high school that was a charter school. Never knew about charter schools because we don't have those in Omaha, nebraska, and so it was a charter school where they were looking to have girls, young people, black kids, go from a trade high school into a trade school, and that was an epic fail for the leaders who were building that school.
Speaker 3:But in the meantime we had to wrap our arms around these kids while they figured it out, and so, in wrapping our arms around the girls, I brought what I did in Omaha to the classroom during the seventh hour of every day in Omaha to the classroom, while we, during the seventh hour of every day, and the girls at the end of the year had grown so much because we intentionally asked them about their day emotionally, mentally, and emotionally, mentally and academically, and so the girls asked me to bring it back the next year.
Speaker 3:And that's when I knew like this is my thing, like I wanted to make sure that no other girl had to go through what I went through. And that's when I knew like this is my thing, like I wanted to make sure that no other girl had to go through what I went through. And what I realized was that it really took for me to bring back what I knew that my aunties did for me, my big cousins did for me, which was look out for me to make sure that I knew what was going to be around the corner, right, so that's what I mean. We did that that year and we've been going there 17 years later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 17 years later, you talk about the success, recognizing what your path was, you know, over 17 years ago, and its success in its first year. You had some partners. Let's talk about Etosha Cook if I'm hoping I'm pronouncing her name correctly and Joanna Olson.
Speaker 1:What made your?
Speaker 2:collaboration with these two young, two ladies, so impactful in the early stage of Project Diva International.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. You know, as Black women, we like, hey, let's link up because I need some help. It's like, so the vision was we, the auntie. So Etosha, she worked with me, she was in the office, I was upstairs in the marketing, the financial office, she was in the main office, and so between me and her, the kids or the girls primarily, but a lot of the boys too were in both of our offices.
Speaker 3:And then Johanna, I actually had went through a relationship, an abusive relationship, with her cousin, and she was the woman who took me under her arms and protected me as I came out of that relationship and made sure that I had the space to get my mental and my emotional state back to where I knew it needed to be. And so I pulled on her to help with her connections in the city, because she was from here as well, I was new to the city, and so to get all three of us together that year we were able to bring in guest speakers, of course, as well as begin creating a curriculum for these babies that we knew as women that we needed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's not hard to you know. Initially I said that there are several layers still, but with each layer, connecting the dots is not very hard, right? So I want you to share with our listeners why did you choose to focus specifically on Black girls or young women, and what are some of the unique challenges they face that Project Diva specifically responds to? Absolutely.
Speaker 3:So we started off with girls of color and it was primarily because the school that we were in was primarily girls of color and so that we didn't leave anyone out. We wanted to make sure that we were holistically making, meeting all of their needs. And as the years went on I'd say maybe year two or three we just we had mostly Black girls already with us. And when I started to do the research because now this is, I'm dedicating my life to it I'm seeing that the 182% that I just realized, like we, those numbers just came out, like I said, around 2017, those put the language to the why, right, like it was, you know how, you just know like these girls need way more. Number one, because, again, I was that black girl who had a mother with a mental illness that, when her challenges came, I was expected to continue to move on in life without nobody asking me what was my plan, how did my mom's situation even impact me, and nobody would tell me what was going on with her.
Speaker 3:So I'm expected to be respectful, I'm expected to get good grades, all of the things without any context. And so and I knew that I had had suicidal thoughts throughout that time frame between middle school and high school and these girls were talking about it like that, when we gave them the space, they were literally talking about it. And so when we moved to speaking that we moved that we service primarily Black girls. We don't discriminate against anyone, but when girls come into our space, they get the Black girl experience, they get the Black aunties right, and so, yeah, and we have, over the years, had a lot of pushback behind why just Black girls? But with a suicide rate of 182%, it's clear to us why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, why not Black girls? Right, why not black girls? We're saying others can join, but the data is telling us that you're aggregating our data, it's the boys' data and you're not putting enough out there to support our black girls, so why not them? Why can't we say you know, come on in, let's wrap our arms around you, like you've said, you mentioned space. Tell me about the space that you create for me. You, like you've said, you mentioned space.
Speaker 3:Tell me about the space that you create for me. So before COVID, we met in person four hours every Saturday for the entire school year and these girls came because, again, this is not in school, this is outside of school, and we knew, I mean, that was up until year 13, 14, 13, 14. And so once COVID hit, then we had to go online. So we are now primarily virtual, but we do get together throughout the year for events and outdoor activities or outside activities, and the space that we've created is what we call a sacred space and it's a space where Black girls can fully be themselves. They don't have to answer away any of the things, and so we have white women, supporters and other ethnicities.
Speaker 3:The sessions where the girls are talking about their emotional health, their mental health and their self-image pretty much is where Black women are in, specifically the financial areas and the other areas you see financial, aviation, business any ethnicity can join us to support the girls. But in those spaces where girls don't have to explain why she does her hair the way she does it, why she uses this type of shampoo, why does she wear her fro like those you know, or why does she, why is she loud? Why is she? Those spaces are just for the Black women and Black girls, and so we call it our sacred space, because there's no spaces on earth where Black girls can just do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's true. I mean outside of other.
Speaker 3:there are other, of course, girls groups where we give them that space, girls groups where we give them that space. But even when you think of girls groups, there is not a building where a black girl can walk into, that is built for her, where she can walk in and be loud throughout the entire building, have sessions about what she needs to talk about, what she wants to talk about with black women pictures, or black men pictures on the walls, and so, even though we created this space, it's like a space inside a space, which is still something that we're working towards so that our girls can have an actual space that they can walk into that looks like them, it's for them, by them.
Speaker 2:Yep, absolutely. It's ownership too. Right, it's ownership, and it also it's accountability. You have your space, you take care of your space, you honor your space, but you know that you belong and this is yours. So, no, I absolutely get it. So you talk about the sacred space, and that's one of your core beliefs, that girls need sacred space. And you mentioned the hugs of the aunties. So I'm getting family, I'm getting community, I'm getting love. Talk to me a little bit more about the importance of actually cultivating that sense of safety and community in Project Viva International.
Speaker 3:Our girls speak on it themselves, like they always talk about how they are so happy that they can just say what they need to say. You know, like this, this auntie, this auntie created space, literally. Girls can come and just lay it all on the table and they you know how a lot of a lot of our challenges.
Speaker 1:I know for me anyway, as a black woman has been, I have to.
Speaker 3:I can give you a piece of me, depending on who you are and where I'm at, but I can't give you all of it and I have to end up suffering some parts of me in silence.
Speaker 3:And so we give girls a space where they can literally lay it all on the line and not be judged right. We tell them that this is not, that. This is a space where we are all figuring this out together, and so there's going to be some times when you lay it all out and there's going to be some times when I lay it all out. This is not traditional. I may throw a couple cuss words, I may get frustrated, I may. You know. It's where we can, for real, show up in our true alignment with ourselves so that we can heal the way we need to heal to then come back out into the world and pour what we know we are magically good at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that word, true alignment. Elaborate on that a little bit more. What does it mean to you and what should it mean for the girls in our community? What does it look like?
Speaker 3:So I created this method called the I am method. It's I align me, and it's where a girl will sit with me at the beginning of the year and she literally just tells me what is her truth in certain areas and in these areas. These areas align with how she wants her lifestyle to be right. So we paint this big picture of what does a lifestyle look like for you if you're really walking in your truth in all of the areas, in your money area, in your emotional health area, really walking in your truth in all of the areas in your money area, in your emotional health area and in your mental health area. And once they finish, once they do that with me, there's a document that comes with it that then we send to them that aligns every, that shows everything that they said is their truth. Then we break it down into vision mapping.
Speaker 3:So, for the next year, how do we get you a year closer to your true alignment? Yeah, so after that, then it's okay. How do we get you a month with an accountability partner closer to that year's alignment? And we, we stand on like that's, that's regular language for us. So when a girl is not showing up, who she says she was, she is. We're able to say okay, I don't, I don't, I don't. Are you aligned? Is that? Is that your truth? Because, then again, no matter we're teaching them, no matter what spaces they are in, they get to show up in their birthright truth because they are aligned with it, because they've articulated it First of all, they've said that's the other thing.
Speaker 1:as Black women, we have had a challenge, and I'm saying this from an organizational space, because we talk about it like that we have.
Speaker 3:our challenges have been that we haven't been able to slow down because once you hit high school and then you're out in the world, you're on a hamster wheel.
Speaker 1:And so nobody ever sits you down and say OK, well, what is the life, what are we?
Speaker 3:doing this for, and so all of us, the adults and the girls, to sit down at the beginning of the year to say what is our true alignment with ourselves According to this lifestyle. Now we can breathe better, we have more capacity to work on the things, because we're not trying to wear a mask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so you know like sometimes the concept of emotional development and academic development is viewed in such silos. How are you engaging the girls to see that emotional development and academic development is interconnected? Oh, these are good questions.
Speaker 3:Yes, this is so important because a lot of our girls and a lot of us were raised that if we go out to get in, to be in a good school Right, which, at the end of the day, is us walking into a space where we're learning somebody else's culture, which is why for years we've had, we've talked about code switching right, we're talking to another culture, and if we can master what they're teaching us about them, then we are intellectually the mom right Like that, I mean, we are the girl like that, we are it, which then ties to our identity. But that doesn't equate to the emotional and mental peace, because you can know all of the things, but you could be so messed up emotionally and mentally.
Speaker 3:So academics is one thing, and how we teach is or how we coach is. You were born brilliant. That's not one of our tenets, because we expect for you to be brilliant, no matter whether you're in that school or you're mastering our culture. You were born to do that God gave you that.
Speaker 3:Now, how are you mastering yourself? What does your emotional health look like when it's in alignment with your truth? And what does your mental health look like when it's in alignment with your truth? And a lot of times it gets blurred. Those ones are really blurred and we have to sit with each girl and we keep reminding them. We know you're brilliant.
Speaker 2:We're not talking about that.
Speaker 3:We're talking about this behavior that you're showing up with with the manipulation with the clothing, with the like. Why are you doing these things? What are you looking to get from it?
Speaker 2:Because it has nothing to do with it when I think about it myself. I think I, growing up, I think I operated with those two aspects in very siloed. I understood, you know, if I understood that my emotional development is connected with my intellectual or educational development, I would have been a much smarter, more mature girl, you know. So maybe I needed a little bit of Project Diva because, honestly, my emotional development was really really lagging. And I mean, and then there are stories that contribute to that right and there are stories that some of these girls in Project Diva International that have like similar backgrounds to mine, so it does make sense and I love that you're able to connect the two and really implore the girls that this is an important aspect of who you are as an individual.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, sis. That has been the success of us. When girls leave, they really have that sense of themselves and a lot of times the world is looking for us to have all these measurements on their success and it lot of times the world is looking for us to have all these measurements on their success, but it and it's the stuff that they want to measure, but some, a lot of times you can't measure the emotional and mental health we just know as women that once they finish with us, listen, they will be able to walk into different spaces as a black young lady way more settled with who they are, or settled into who they are way more confident.
Speaker 3:One of the examples that I gave a couple of weeks ago was I'm a part of a couple of organizations that are primarily white women and, like I told them, if I didn't know who I was, I would have left a long time ago because the microaggressions right, the white women sticking together and sometimes sticking together against me when I know what, I know what I'm talking about, I don't have to deal with that.
Speaker 3:So I could have left a long time ago if I wouldn't, if I wasn't emotionally and mentally in tune with me. But because I know who I am. I don't have to go nowhere. We can have this whole conversation, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, so that you understand why.
Speaker 3:I'm here, how it benefits both you and myself. Yeah, that's what we're teaching the girls Like, even in school, as they're going through classes, we'll have girls text us in the middle of the day and be like well, my teacher just said this to me. So the first thing is to remind them that you're not crazy, and if that felt like it didn't feel right, then you're right. Now let's deal with what result would you like, and let's give you the language to be able to then advocate for yourself, because you know who you are.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. You know who Nita Renee is, so you have to stand in that truth, absolutely. You know we talk about. You mentioned measures and metrics and people looking at statistics, but you boast a success story here. You have less than 1% teenage pregnancy, 100% school year completion and a 99% graduation rate. What do you attribute this type of success with Project Diva International? How do you measure the deeper, more intangible impacts of the program on the girls involved in the program?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. The teenage pregnancy piece is all because, again, they know who they are. So, because they understand and value who they are, they make better decisions when it comes to them being with young men or young women, whatever they choose Right? They actually are thinking through who they want in that space and if they're even ready for a child, right. So we don't turn around those conversations, we have those conversations.
Speaker 3:So that again they know what's coming around that corner For the school, the graduation rate and the school year completion. It also is because we already we expect the brilliance. It's not, you know, can you get this work done? It's where are you having the challenges and like we do as adults, where do you need somebody to support you in that? Because we like to lean into our, into our gifts, and wherever we're not gifted, you go and get somebody to help you with that. So we teach them those tools so that they walk into adulthood with the same mentality. Right, but they don't have to wait till they're an adult to understand that we give them those tools while they're still in middle school and high school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I'm a huge proponent for alternative ways to responding to the needs of our girls. I said that it cannot only be taught. I said that it cannot only be taught, and Project Diva is providing that space for girls to have healthy communication and healthy dialogue with each other and build community, I would say, because, anyway, you have two or three together, I'm sure you know, something magical usually comes from it, because girls are learning to really speak with each other. How do you view, though, the role of alternative therapies or non-traditional approaches to personal development of women and girls? How do you see you know, those other modalities working?
Speaker 3:Man, this is good. Up until this year, actually, that has been one of our biggest challenges. It is most of our parents come to us when their children are needing more support, trying to find a black therapist primarily a black woman therapist and it's just again. You know, the black women therapists are either super booked or non-existent or can't afford it. So after meeting you in cake therapy, it was like a ding, ding, ding, and so now we have literally began to look for other therapy modalities, such as the cake therapy, and so we are instilling the cake therapy option for our parents and our girls, which we are so excited to be working with you on. We're also instilling the cake therapy option for our parents and our girls, which we are so excited to be working with you on. We're also instilling boxing therapy. There's a girl that has signed on to us participating with our girls in boxing therapy, and that's because one of my other sister girls she started boxing therapy like back, I think, a year ago.
Speaker 1:And so it's like, oh, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 3:And then we have swimming therapy, we have music therapy, we have equestrian ago, and so it's like, oh, that's so beautiful. And then we have swimming therapy, we have music therapy, we have equestrian therapy, and so it's giving our girls options, because, at the end of the day, what I've been telling parents is whether you find a therapist or not, your baby still needs to get to her heel.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So where can we find some synergy in her interest, or at least what she's willing to do to get the therapy and these turn into hobbies? Is our goal? That they turn into hobbies that are lifelong types of ways. Not only that they that way they will stick with, but then they're also expanding their idea ideals around what does therapy look like for them, instead of continuing toward the status quo that has not been helping us for years? That are continuing toward the status quo that has not been helping us for years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, when I think about Project Diva, I see so much alignment with the Cake Therapy Foundation because our vision and you know, I think our mission is all about empowering and uplifting young women which constantly resonate with me. I feel like it's my. It's not a feeling. I know it's my purpose to support young women and girls. I know it's my calling to be able to tell a girl what I have been through so that they know that they have an ally and a friend and a listener in me and in our foundation. Girls show up. The biggest thing I find is confidence and the inability to trust other individuals. Trust what they're feeling, trust what they're thinking. Tell me about Project Diva's biggest challenges and I tell you what our biggest challenges are, because I want to see if they have those challenges aligned, since we're dealing with the same population.
Speaker 3:You're spot on Not trusting their process and the confidence Also it is feeling safe to be able to share. That's one of the biggest things too is girls having to get with us and be with us for a little while before they're like, okay, they the real deal. Right, that's the other piece, but definitely not trusting their process. So, again, as we're as we do our power hour, as we do our I am method, those things are the things that in like just kind of keep reminding them like no, and and we say it a lot in project Viva, oh, they come to us. They're like oh, no, we trust your process. Yeah, just let like.
Speaker 1:I trust your process.
Speaker 3:Let me hear it again, what do you think the solution should be? Girl, that's perfect. I trust your process and I want you to do the same. Yeah, so I love that. That's a thought on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what motivates you to continue to do this work? When we understand the hierarchy of how the world views us, right, they see the white man, the white woman, the black man and then the black girls. Tell me what it is with all of those things that are stacked against women, women of color, of black women. You know I can no longer use BIPOC and I tell you why. I've told you why. But I want to know what keeps you going, what motivates you to continue to do this work?
Speaker 3:Dr Foster, it's because I needed a therapist. I don't want to say I needed a therapist, I need a support. And when I created Project Diva, these girls and women were my support, they were my therapy. And this is from when I didn't understand it, back in Omaha, when I was, when I first started off at the middle school and I blessed the girls to come into my salon.
Speaker 3:But when I came up here to Minnesota, and it's such a white space, I needed them because I also was still caretaking for my mom, so I went from not knowing where she was to her coming back to Omaha, being in the on the coldest day of the year one year in Minnesota, being on a bench and me having to say I need to figure this out with her. And so I'm in Minnesota now because I needed to also have a space where I could breathe, because Omaha felt like it was smothering me. But when I was here, I had to continuously go back home to make sure that she was either put in the hospital or that I laid eyes on her when things weren't going well. And so those were a lot of crying nights.
Speaker 3:They were a lot of frustrated days on the phones with, you know, the Department of Health, and you know trying to figure out what facility I can put her in, and then don't even talk about when they took the facilities away, then you know that was a whole nother level to how do I continue to get her help.
Speaker 3:And so my motivation has been that and I talk to the leaders and the girls consistently around we are not born to be in silos. We all need a care team before we need a care team. So I have created this care team of women that I celebrate with and in my crying nights I know I can call at two in the morning to say I'm not doing well, and so I know that our girls need this, and so I get up every day until I get this space, until this campus is built. I am not stopping until that happens, because our girls need a physical space as much as we've created a regular space. But I do it because, before I leave here, I want to make sure that all Black girls know that they have a space that they can come to.
Speaker 2:Okay 182%. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's scary, but it's so unfortunate that don't nobody care enough to really put their like wrap as a group of us.
Speaker 1:When you hear that data as a Black woman.
Speaker 3:there's no way that it should be like oh, these are our babies. Yes, absolutely, and if we know what it's like, then why, would we not make sure that our babies are good?
Speaker 2:And here's why we know this. We know that we needed that kind of support when we were growing up. The only difference is that we didn't have the internet and the social media to see that you know it's like it's not what I'm saying Exactly. So back then we isolated ourselves, you know and I talk about this in my new book I have a new book coming out where we isolate ourselves. I personally isolated myself from a place of shame, not really understanding what was happening or what we're doing.
Speaker 3:Tell us a little bit more about, like, what's next for you, what's next for project diva international yes, and I just want to touch on like that shame piece, because that is big with us as black women.
Speaker 3:Like we're too shameful to tell where we are financially, we're too shameful to tell how we really feel about our relationships, we're too shameful to feel how we're I tell about, how we're feeling about our parenting, and so, again, like we let girls know, lay that stuff at the door and come on in and talk. So Project Diva International is on this trajectory to create a self-mastery campus that allows for our girls to have a space that is theirs that they then can invite all other ethnicities, girls and boys, into to really get this work, so that more people than just us, because we're natural caretakers. That's the way God designed us, but we can do it on our terms and in our way, and so our goal is to create this campus, this self-mastery campus, here in Minnesota, to have it as one of the places that people come to from all over the world to experience.
Speaker 2:Yep and our cake therapy girls can come. Yes, I want y'all in the building, we in the building girl.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying. We need you in your building, girl. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:You're not in the building, so yeah, we come from a culture you talk about this before. We come from a culture of we don't tell the business. Right, it's happening. You don't ever tell the business. I want you to look in your camera because I am going to eventually post this on YouTube, but I want you to speak into the mic as clearly as you can. I want you to tell our listeners, especially the black girls so that's mostly our audience, yes who feel lost, who's feeling disconnected. What is your message to them right now?
Speaker 3:Ooh, baby girl, my message to you is that you identify a Black woman that you can, for real, be your true self with and you ask her to go to lunch, breakfast, dinner for a ride, for a walk, so that you can just be. Just tell her I just want to just be with you. I don't want to be, I don't want to have to wear a mask. I just want to be able to share with you where I'm at emotionally, where I'm at mentally and where I am at financially, so that you can potentially support me in either helping me yourself or connecting me to what I need, so that I can be okay. That's what I want my baby girls to know.
Speaker 2:And as she she's listening, where can she find you if she wants to reach you?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. Projectdivaorg is where we are. You send us a message, you send us an email or even a phone number, and somebody from our team will definitely reach back out to you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what, Nita, I'm grateful that you honored the podcast and came to share about Project Difa International, but I'm even more grateful for you. You know I am grateful for your friendship and I think it resonates. I get it. I get how you, you know how these 1500 girls who you've impacted to date, how they find a safe space with you. You are uber welcoming, soft, you're girly, you know you're in your soft girl era and you deserve to be, but not only that. You are so supportive. I appreciate you. The girls of the community appreciate you. I'm happy that you decided to join us.
Speaker 2:I want to personally thank you again. I want to thank our listeners, I want to thank our subscribers and for today's mindful moment. I try to share mindful moments with our listeners before we leave or end our podcast, and this one is definitely inspired by you, Nita, and your work. It's inspired your work and your incredible story. It says every great journey begins with self-discovery and, just like a cake, each ingredient, like our experiences, challenges and victories, shape who we are. Our experiences, challenges and victories shape who we are. When we embrace them all, we rise beautifully. At the Cake Therapy Podcast, we're encouraging you, our listeners, to reflect on your own journey, honoring every part of your story as an essential ingredient in the masterpiece of your life. Until next time. Thank you for joining us. This has been the Cake Therapy Podcast, your slice of joy and healing. Thank you, Nita, you for joining us. This has been the Cake Therapy Podcast, your slice of joy and healing. Thank you, Nita, for joining us.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me, Sue.
Speaker 2:I love having you here.
Speaker 3:I will anytime, and I can bring a girl. Let's do it, let's get it.
Speaker 2:Guys, aren't you excited? Nita said she's going to come back and she's going to bring a girl. Listen, we need girls up in this space, you know, because girls we run the world. All right, I get it All right. Well, thank you guys. Today's mindful moment is that let each stir and whisk remind you to be present. Cooking is as much about being in the moment as it is about the end result.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the Cake Therapy Podcast. Your support means the world to us. Let us know what you thought about today's episode in the comment section. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you found the conversation helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, follow Sugar Spoon Desserts on all social media platforms. We invite you to support Cake Therapy and the work we do with our foundation by clicking on the Buy Me a Coffee link in the description or by visiting the Cake Therapy website and making a donation. All your support will go towards the Cake Therapy website and making a donation. All your support will go towards the Cake Therapy Foundation and the work we are doing to help women and girls. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.