The Women’s Theological Center (WTC) of Boston originally created the Loves Herself Regardless program specifically for black women to have a “place” to share thoughts, feelings, and emotions. They wanted to build a community of learners that practiced would support, trust, and be accountable to each other. Some of the initial objectives of the program were to discuss topics such as internalized racism, cross-cultural differences and connections, class oppression, and sexuality. In 1996 volunteers first introduced the program to our Adult Learner Program on an occasional basis, as their time allowed. However, in 1999, the ALP established Loves Herself as a once-a-week class. This class primarily concentrates on providing the women with a place to build self-esteem, self-awareness, and increase self-care. While doing this process work on the “inner” mind, body, spirit, and emotions, the women develop leadership skills. This class is strategically placed during the first period slot on Monday mornings. We know that our learners are coming back to school after weekends that are frequently filled with busy, chaotic, and even traumatic events. We call this the “weekend effect.” Sometimes women arrive having not had any sleep, food, heat, or shelter of their own over the weekend. We cannot expect them to retain information before releasing these tensions from the “weekend effect.” As we know from our WVAE project, we have to “calm the learners down” so they can learn.
In an essay one student wrote, she describes her impression of the Loves Herself Regardless class:
[The] Loves Herself Regardless [class] offers students the opportunity to build their self-esteem, self-awareness, self-care, and leadership skills. The class is a combination of several things. The women involved in this group share with one another their happiness and sadness, and advice with each other. We express our feelings on paper and verbally. We also use a brain dump technique that involves writing what we want to release and any thoughts that may get in the way of our learning. It helps us to stay in the present moment (Student writing, 2004).