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Transcript: Meet the Girls Today, Women Tomorrow

JIMMY SMITS: In 1996, an informal group of young Latina women saw a need for positive female role models in their community. Among them was then teenager Michele Deane.

MICHELE DEANE: You know honestly, it was with a group of friends. We didn't know what we were doing other than just hanging out with some of the girls here in the community, doing exercises, hey let's do some leadership exercises.

JIMMY SMITS: This was peer pressure of a positive sort. As girls nurture each other to excel and achieve.

MICHELE DEANE: And I so fell in love. I mean it started as a volunteering thing for like three years and then I'm like, "You know, let's do this for real." Everyone got a little nervous like, "Yeah?"

JIMMY SMITS: What started as a simple exercise became a life-transforming experience. This Latina girl network began to call upon outside resources to better themselves and each other. Those who achieve personal success returned to help the younger girls. And so a movement was born and continues to thrive. Who are these young women? Well, they are proud to tell you.

GTWT GROUP: Girls Today, Women Tomorrow, whooo!

LAURA PALOMARES: We're a leadership-mentoring program. We're called Girls Today, Women Tomorrow. We're based out of Boyle Heights. We work with young girls from the ages of 12 to 22.

JIMMY SMITS: An important project nurtured by these young women is that of developing a community garden in Boyle Heights called ‘Projecto Jardin.' They use their work in this garden to foster healthier eating habits and to embrace their Hispanic traditions.

LAURA PALOMARES: You ask a youth how do carrots grow and they think it's from a tree. And having them plant here and have time just for themselves away from school, away from their parents, it's been refreshing for them.

CELENA DE LEON: I feel what's so unique about this garden is that it's really about the community and really about getting people out here to know that this is their space to use. I mean, you can see the corn over there. We're gonna be having a wide variety of heirloom tomato varieties, all different kinds of chili peppers. We have some seeds coming from Mexico and we're gonna be having all spectrums of fiber nutrients and things like that that are good for our bodies and for the planet.

DAISY TONANTZIN: It's more about rekindling what we already have within us. It really is part of who we are and what our grandmas and great grandmas used so it's kind of rekindling within all of us. 

JIMMY SMITS: Each fall, the women gather together to reap the benefits of their labors in the annual harvest celebration.

CELENA DE LEON: We eat the harvest, ha, ha.

MOTHER: Mexican chili, it's hot.

LAURA PALOMARES: I guess that part that's the greatest is we helped grow it. That's the most exciting part.

JIMMY SMITS: Among the organization's many activities are video production, Web site development, kickboxing classes, team building camping retreats, an annual fashion show in which the women design and make their own fashions and a very important college scholarship fund.

ELIZABETH VAZQUEZ: The Girls Today, Women Tomorrow program actually had a lot to do with me going to the college that I'm going to. I'm going to an out of state college, to the University of Wisconsin in Madison. And they nominated me for a scholarship in which I receive 4-year tuition scholarship.

JEANETTE SANCHEZ: I only live with my mom. There wasn't enough money so I always thought that I wouldn't have a future so now that I have positive role models, now I'm going to college and I'm being positive by thinking that I'm gonna be someone in life.

MICHELE DEANE: We found that once they felt that somebody was investing in them, they in turn started doing it for their friends, the younger kids growing up. Something in the consciousness started shifting and it was just amazing.

ALMA CATALAN: I started when I was in high school and now I'm finishing my second year at Santa Monica College and I'm also a mentee in the process of being also a mentor.

JIMMY SMITS: Despite these achievements, drive-by shootings and the frustration of living in fear remain part of the Boyle Heights landscape.

YOBANA CORDERO: Cause I want other children to be happy and I don't want them to be sad and I don't know.

MICHELE DEANE: Those are the people that really make a difference in the world. I mean a global community that works especially as kids get older, they can see where they're at and what they're doing.

YOBANA CORDERO: There's so many things that I wanna do when I grow up, but like my main, main goals are to hold public office, hopefully to be the next president. Well we'll see, but I would like to first hold public office in a community, in my community, Congresswoman or whatever to make the other men not to distant, but to be closer to the community and so people won't be afraid to go out and speak out. And I think I'll be a good representative. It's a great country for me so I think I'll make a great leader.

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