ON December 9, 2023 three young ladies from the Washington Metropolitan Region were chosen by a team of prestigious judges as recipients of the prestigious Discovering Me Scholarship Award presented by Esther Productions Inc. in partnership with The Black Student Fund. The winners were selected based on the quality of their essays that told of the challenges they have faced related to growing up without the presence and active involvement of their fathers in their lives. The young essay writers also discussed how they have come to build resilience and to appreciate their own value and independence.
Kenya Thomas received the top prize of $1500.00 for her heartfelt essay. The newly established $500 President's Award was later given to Simaya Hammond.
In the middle school category, cash awards were presented to Vanity Ewart-Smith and Makda Nana; they were 1st and 2nd Place winners respectively, receiving more than $700 in total prizes. Kariana Bates received an Honorable Mention.
The Honorable Anita Josey-Herring, chief judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, presented the awards. On the court, she has been extensively involved with family and children’s issues, including serving as the deputy presiding judge of the Family Court. This was her second appearance at the Discovering Me Summit and Awards Ceremony. Josey-Herring urged the young ladies to embrace their worth and personal strength in order to achieve success; she also shared glimpses of her own life’s challenges and changes.
Assisting Judge Josey-Herring with the presentation of the awards were Leroy Nesbitt, Jr, executive director of The Black Student Fund and contest judges including Pat Bitondo, Ana R. Harvey, Winfield Swanson and Alicia M. Henry.
A special assistant to California Senator Laphonza Butler, Henry called the writing by this year’s participants “vibrant,” adding that participants “took the time to specifically articulate the father absence--effects and impact.”
Currently, there are more than 18 million children in America, most of them girls, growing up without either a biological, step or adoptive father in their home. The effect of that absence, which is devastating, shows early in their lives and left without attention or active efforts to heal can track through adulthood. But sometimes presence is equally brutal, as Kenya Thomas shared in her top prize essay about the beginning years of life with her father:
“Daddy’s girl” is what my dad would say to me every time I did something to make him happy. For as long as I could remember, my parents were the perfect couple full of so much love and adoration for each other, they were inseparable. As I got older, I began to experience and witness the true relationship of my parents and the scariest parts of it. The arguments, the yelling, the fights, the cursing, I remember it all like a constant nightmare on replay. During most of my childhood, it seemed that everything I did was wrong and disrespectful or upset him. If an assignment wasn’t done correctly, he would wake me up in the middle of the night to do it over. If our room wasn’t cleaned correctly, he would wait until we got home to make an issue of it. Even when he joked around with us, it still felt like he was serious and ready to explode at us. My father made me believe that discipline was a form of love and the only form of love that I was worthy of receiving,” Kenya wrote, noting her parents eventually divorced.
Vanity Smith wrote that, “In the beginning my father was always there for me. He took care of me and made sure I was protected for about the first three years of my life. Then he packed up and moved to California.
“To forget his problems, he drowned them in alcohol, but you cannot run away from your problems forever. Since the move was so sudden, he had no job in California. Although we were not there with him physically this negatively affected me and my mother as well. My mother was struggling to get child support from him while also sheltering, clothing, and feeding two children. Money was tight, but she always made ends meet. As a child you do not see how hard a single mother's job is. Not only does the father not being around affect the child but also the mother,” continued Vanity. “School was not a walk in the park either. At the time the majority of the other kids had a father.”
More than two-dozen teen girls between the ages of 13 and 18 submitted essays to the competition. Those who did not receive cash prizes were each presented with gift cards and a certificate of achievement declaring them “Discoverers.”
In addition to the awards ceremony, the young ladies, their mother, grandmothers and friends participated in the summit, which included interactive mini workshops designed and presented by jonetta rose barras, Dr. Misty Freeman and Dr. Tracie Robinson. The workshops were created to help the audience understand the underlying effects and elements of father absence while identifying tools and resources that could be used to heal or to instigate greater self-actualization and personal power.
Discovering Me…Without You Personal Essay Scholarship Contest was launched in 2019 by the Fatherless Daughter Empowerment Project, a division of Esther Productions Inc. The essay contest is designed to educate the public about the importance of fathers in the lives and development of girls and women. In the Washington Metropolitan region at least 60 %
of households are headed by single women. The contest is intended to provide a platform for some of those children, particularly fatherless girls, to explain the impact of father absence in their lives and to showcase their personal resilience.
The essay submissions were judged by a team of successful professional leaders, including Patricia Bitondo, a local business person and member of the Woman’s National Democratic Club; Dr. Misty Freeman, a local psychologist who works with students; Ana R. Harvey, a former senior executive in President Barack Obama’s administration and current director of the popular arts destination Dupont Underground; Shelly Livingston; Winfield Swanson with the Woman’s National Democratic Club; Addison Switzer, co-chair of Esther Productions Inc. and CEO of BuckWild Media and Nesbitt.
Winning essays will be featured on estherproductionsinc.com during the months of January and February.
The Discovering Me Summit and Awards Ceremony was sponsored by AmerigroupDC, Kerry S. Pearson LLC, Emmanuel Bailey- Veterans Services Corp, David Jannarone and Esther’s Friends.
Esther Productions, Inc. is a Washington, DC-based national nonprofit organization, founded in 2004 for the express purpose of using the arts as prime vehicle to help heal, inspire and empower girls and women; it is led by author, public scholar and life coach jonetta rose barras.
Special Thanks to Afrika Abney, Arts and Marketing Consultant, and the conference team at Trinity Washington University: Annette Coram and Thomas Dow.
ON December 9, 2023 three young ladies from the Washington Metropolitan Region were chosen by a team of prestigious judges as recipients of the prestigious Discovering Me Scholarship Award presented by Esther Productions Inc. in partnership with The Black Student Fund. The winners were selected based on the quality of their essays that told of the challenges they have faced related to growing up without the presence and active involvement of their fathers in their lives. The young essay writers also discussed how they have come to build resilience and to appreciate their own value and independence.
Kenya Thomas received the top prize of $1500.00 for her heartfelt essay. The newly established President's Award was given later to Simaya Hammon.
In the middle school category, cash awards were presented to Vanity Ewart-Smith and Makda Nana; they were 1st and 2nd Place winners respectively, receiving more than $700 in total prizes. Kariana Bates received an Honorable Mention.
The Honorable Anita Josey-Herring, chief judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, presented the awards. On the court, she has been extensively involved with family and children’s issues, including serving as the deputy presiding judge of the Family Court. This was her second appearance at the Discovering Me Summit and Awards Ceremony. Josey-Herring urged the young ladies to embrace their worth and personal strength in order to achieve success; she also shared glimpses of her own life’s challenges and changes.
Assisting Judge Josey-Herring with the presentation of the awards were Leroy Nesbitt, Jr, executive director of The Black Student Fund and contest judges including Pat Bitondo, Ana R. Harvey, Winfield Swanson and Alicia M. Henry.
A special assistant to California Senator Laphonza Butler, Henry called the writing by this year’s participants “vibrant,” adding that participants “took the time to specifically articulate the father absence--effects and impact.”
Currently, there are more than 18 million children in America, most of them girls, growing up without either a biological, step or adoptive father in their home. The effect of that absence, which is devastating, shows early in their lives and left without attention or active efforts to heal can track through adulthood. But sometimes presence is equally brutal, as Kenya Thomas shared in her top prize essay about the beginning years of life with her father:
“Daddy’s girl” is what my dad would say to me every time I did something to make him happy. For as long as I could remember, my parents were the perfect couple full of so much love and adoration for each other, they were inseparable. As I got older, I began to experience and witness the true relationship of my parents and the scariest parts of it. The arguments, the yelling, the fights, the cursing, I remember it all like a constant nightmare on replay. During most of my childhood, it seemed that everything I did was wrong and disrespectful or upset him. If an assignment wasn’t done correctly, he would wake me up in the middle of the night to do it over. If our room wasn’t cleaned correctly, he would wait until we got home to make an issue of it. Even when he joked around with us, it still felt like he was serious and ready to explode at us. My father made me believe that discipline was a form of love and the only form of love that I was worthy of receiving,” Kenya wrote, noting her parents eventually divorced.
Vanity Smith wrote that, “In the beginning my father was always there for me. He took care of me and made sure I was protected for about the first three years of my life. Then he packed up and moved to California.
“To forget his problems, he drowned them in alcohol, but you cannot run away from your problems forever. Since the move was so sudden, he had no job in California. Although we were not there with him physically this negatively affected me and my mother as well. My mother was struggling to get child support from him while also sheltering, clothing, and feeding two children. Money was tight, but she always made ends meet. As a child you do not see how hard a single mother's job is. Not only does the father not being around affect the child but also the mother,” continued Vanity. “School was not a walk in the park either. At the time the majority of the other kids had a father.”
More than two-dozen teen girls between the ages of 13 and 18 submitted essays to the competition. Those who did not receive cash prizes were each presented with gift cards and a certificate of achievement declaring them “Discoverers.”
In addition to the awards ceremony, the young ladies, their mother, grandmothers and friends participated in the summit, which included interactive mini workshops designed and presented by jonetta rose barras, Dr. Misty Freeman and Dr. Tracie Robinson. The workshops were created to help the audience understand the underlying effects and elements of father absence while identifying tools and resources that could be used to heal or to instigate greater self-actualization and personal power.
Discovering Me…Without You Personal Essay Scholarship Contest was launched in 2019 by the Fatherless Daughter Empowerment Project, a division of Esther Productions Inc. The essay contest is designed to educate the public about the importance of fathers in the lives and development of girls and women. In the Washington Metropolitan region at least 60 %
of households are headed by single women. The contest is intended to provide a platform for some of those children, particularly fatherless girls, to explain the impact of father absence in their lives and to showcase their personal resilience.
The essay submissions were judged by a team of successful professional leaders, including Patricia Bitondo, a local business person and member of the Woman’s National Democratic Club; Dr. Misty Freeman, a local psychologist who works with students; Ana R. Harvey, a former senior executive in President Barack Obama’s administration and current director of the popular arts destination Dupont Underground; Shelly Livingston; Winfield Swanson with the Woman’s National Democratic Club; Addison Switzer, co-chair of Esther Productions Inc. and CEO of BuckWild Media and Nesbitt.
Winning essays will be featured on estherproductionsinc.com during the months of January and February.
The Discovering Me Summit and Awards Ceremony was sponsored by AmerigroupDC, Kerry S. Pearson LLC, Emmanuel Bailey- Veterans Services Corp, David Jannarone and Esther’s Friends.
Esther Productions, Inc. is a Washington, DC-based national nonprofit organization, founded in 2004 for the express purpose of using the arts as prime vehicle to help heal, inspire and empower girls and women; it is led by author, public scholar and life coach jonetta rose barras.
Special Thanks to Afrika Abney, Arts and Marketing Consultant, and the conference team at Trinity Washington University: Annette Coram and Thomas Dow. Photo credit: Addison Switzer, scene from the event, including some of the young ladies in attendance; The Black Student Fund's leroy Nesbitt, Jr. introducing Chief Judge Josey-Herring and middle school 1st place winner Vanity Ewart-Smith