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What started as perhaps everyday conversations with her students, Ateira Griffin is changing lives for generations to come. This Baltimore school administrator and daughter of a single mom, who was also raised by a single mom, has created the organization BOND-Building Our Nation’s Daughters – and forged unbreakable bonds between women of color – Single Moms and their Daughters.
The BOND founder says that it was through her current position as Dean of Students at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women that she discovered a similarity in the relationships between the young women of color and their single mothers.
In a CBS News interview, Griffin said, “One of the greatest joys I had was talking to my girls. They would tell me everything they were going through. All of the ups and downs, the challenges… And I would have to ask them, you know, have you talked to your mother or your maternal figure about this? And the answers I got, they would say, ‘No. We don’t have that kind of relationship. No, I don’t wanna put anything else on her plate. I don’t wanna be a burden.'”
Simultaneously, the mothers of her students approached Ms. Griffin, asking, “‘Can you help me with my relationship with my daughter?’ … or ‘Can you help me fill out this job application? Can you help me get through the line at the housing department or at social services?'”
With the absence of groups to help her village of single mothers and daughters, Ateira Griffin created BOND. With the assistance of her own mom, counselor Alisa Williams, Griffin set in motion the Baltimore-based not-for-profit organization in 2015.
BOND seeks to “address needs in a multi-generational way that provides an opportunity for exponential impact.“
Among BOND’s offerings, there are mentorship programs, along with a financial wellness curriculum built by and for women. This, Ms. Griffin notes, has enabled more than two-thirds of BOND mothers to increase their salaries by one tax bracket.
In addition to making changes in current political and human services, including housing and living wages, Ateira Griffin says, “One of the biggest things that I see is just this new, open, very clear communication between moms and daughters that also includes language around our emotions and our mental health.”
(SOURCE: CBS NEWS)
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