Girls Matter, Too!
A GROUP FOR GIRLS AGES 5 – 8 YEARS OLD
This group will be using the arts, and reading and writing, to strengthen girls creativity, self esteem, and literacy.
The goal is to provide a safe space for young girls to thrive, to be mentored, and to reinforce personal growth, increased communication, and refinement.
The group is led by Yejide Muhammad, M.Ed, LADC 1, LCDP, CADC, author of Curriculum for Black Parents, and a BIPOC Therapist. The group is co-led by Parents, currently Ms. Marilyn Melendez (Parent). If interested in participating, please contact Yejide.
Group begins Wednesday, December 17, 2025 from 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm at the John Hope Settlement House.
John Hope Settlement House
7 Thomas P Whitten Way
Providence, RI 02903
Email: muhammadhealing@gmail.com
Phone: (617) 586-5762
Future Leaders of RI Program
Beginning August 1, 2025, Sharieff's Project will offer an extended day program featuring academic support focused on reading, writing, and literacy for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade students who live in Pawtucket or attend school in Pawtucket.
The Program will be offered from 3:00pm to 6:00pm, on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at:
Sharieff’s Project & Black Lives Matter Innovation, 225 Main Street, Pawtucket, RI 02860
Our Program will utilize the arts to engage students, and to provide additional learning skills for students to demonstrate comprehension. Students will be encouraged to write, draw, act out a character, use music, write their own lyrics, practice speaking on a microphone, create skits, and more. In addition, the students will be taught to read using phonics, as we have learned that phonics has been removed from some of the public schools and replaced by teaching students to memorize words.
If interested in participating in the program please call Yejide Muhammad (617-586-5762) or Supreme Richardson (617-903-2051) to learn more and register your child.
Sharieff’s Project students learning to play West African Drums (Adinkra Tribe).
Support Through the Arts
Sharieff’s Project enlists the Arts to help children ages 6 to 10 cope with life's trauma and loss. The group will be facilitated in 6-week intervals, one 90-minute session per week. The Group facilitators will use the Arts - including music, dance, storytelling, drawing, painting, skits, etc. in order to support children in expressing themselves, their feelings and living the daily trauma that has come to be accepted as “the norm."
Sessions will include 10-12 children per session depending on age and/or developmental stage. Pre-registration and intake forms required. Please understand that your child may not have a guaranteed opening every 6-week cycle in order to provide for all children who are interested. Contact Us for enrollment.
We know that children grow at different stages developmentally, and they have to grow into their own. Children in general do not have the language to express themselves, their pain or the situations that they find themselves in, and they are powerless to change that. From this premise we believe that using the Arts will support children through the healing process, while teaching them new coping skills and increasing their self esteem and and communication skills.
We realize that just as adults are not all the same, all children are not the same. We want to effect change in the children who have lost their voice and are afraid to speak up. We want to teach the children to be assertive, not aggressive, and respectful with good manners while building on their strengths and reinforcing their natural abilities and talent. Children learn defiant, disrespectful behavior over time - for attention seeking and or as a defensive behavior.
After being told to “shut up” or called “stupid dumb ass,” for example, children come to believe that these labels are true about them. It leads to low self esteem or no self esteem and feelings of “I am not good enough” or “I don’t matter.”
Upon completion of our support through the Arts program, we want our children to speak up, speak out speak until someone hears and responds. And we want our children to know and demonstrate their brilliance.
Curriculum for
Black Parents
About the Book
Curriculum for Black Parents is an instructional curriculum for teachers and childhood education professionals who facilitate parenting groups on how best to raise, nurture, support, and care for their children. Unlike most parenting curricula, Curriculum for Black Parents acknowledges how racism and racial injustice affect Black parents and Black children, highlighting the fears and struggles that are particular to Black families.
About the Author
Yejide Muhammad was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and grew up in Boston. She attended the University of Massachusetts, and graduated earning a master’s degree in education in the field of Counseling Psychology. She holds two licenses as a professional counselor, LADC1 and LCDP. Muhammad started her own private practice providing non-traditional counseling that includes a cultural and spiritual approach, specifically aiding African American communities and families. Muhammad raised three sons.
