Teacher Hopes To Make A Difference With Avon® Hello Tomorrow Fund Award

Sept. 23, 2008 - PRLog -- KEY WEST, FL —  Avon® Hello Tomorrow Fund finalist, Rachel Kenyata Armour, anxiously waits to see if she will win the $5,000 cash award needed to fund i Control Power Girls™, a new initiative designed to help at-risk girls in Bahama Village. According to an e-mail from BNC, a communications firm representing Avon, 27 year-old Armour is one of the top 31 finalists out of nearly 750 applicants nationwide. High-profile judges include Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York; Phylicia Rashad, award-winning actress from The Cosby Show; Suze Orman, personal finance expert; and Jillian Dempsey, beauty industry icon. Each week the Avon® Hello Tomorrow Fund provides one $5,000 award to an individual who shows a deep commitment to empowering women and improving society.

“It is such an honor just to be recognized as a finalist. Even if I do not win the cash award, I will cherish this moment for the rest of my life. I was selected by successful women who have inspired me my entire life,” says Armour, former Key West High School English teacher and writing expert. “On the other hand, I am a single mother of three and was recently laid off from my teaching position. So, I would definitely be grateful to win the award,” she adds.

i Control Power Girls™ teaches girls how to write, present, and market a motivational speech while helping to build critical skills necessary to be successful in the real world. “Many of these girls have a story to tell. It is their right to tell it, and I’m going to help them tell it the right way,” states Armour, who has been a nationally recognized and award-winning motivational speaker since the age of 15. Statistically, girls who reside in the Bahama Village neighborhood are at high risk for drug abuse, truancy, illiteracy, teen-aged pregnancy, and domestic violence. Armour says she cares deeply about all her students, regardless of race or gender, but she can relate to the girls of this declining predominately African-American neighborhood.

Armour grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes, a gang-infested housing project on the South side of Chicago until age 13. By that time, she had already witnessed over a dozen murders with her two eyes. “When my mother moved us to Lansing, Michigan to start a new life, I made a vow to do everything in my power to preventother children from going through what I have been through in my life. Every child deserves the right to live in an environment free of open-air drug markets and rampant violence,” declares Armour. After moving from her predominately-Black neighborhood in Chicago to culturally diverse Lansing, Armour began to develop higher self-esteem and a passion to make a difference.

In 2003, Armour graduated magna cum laude from Wilberforce University of Ohio with a Bachelor of Arts in mass media/communications. A year later she decided to join Teach for America, a non-profit organization which seeks to close the achievement gap by placing top college graduates in classrooms across America. Selected for the 2004 Houston Corps, Armour soon developed an essay-writing system in her 7th grade ESL classroom. She learned to relate to students on their level, while challenging traditional teaching methods. She started to use hip-hop, television shows, and video games to get students interested in learning, while drawing analogies to English language arts concepts. She called her writing program “i Control” and began marketing her system to charter schools in the Mid West. One group of 4th graders at a charter school in Ohio boasted a 92% passing rate on the writing portion of the Ohio Achievement Test, while only 27% passed the previous year. These results, along with other schools, motivated Armour to continue on a mission to help children learn how to read, write, and speak properly.

With two small children and one in her belly, Armour drove a moving truck for several days until she and her family reached the island of Key West. After heavy recruitment efforts from the Florida Department of Education, Armour decided to take a break from running her non-profit organization, Choices i Control Academic Program, Inc., so that she can return to the classroom. Despite several warnings from friends and family, she decided to take a chance for the sake of the children in Key West. After analyzing school data for Monroe County, she realized that large gaps existed among students who were of African-American and Hispanic descent. She discovered Bahama Village while seeking a preschool for her children. “I was surprised to see Detroit in the middle of paradise. I mean, that’s what Bahama Village looked like to me, but a smaller version,” says Armour, who enrolled her children at a daycare center in the neighborhood.

According to a document prepared by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, 49% of Black students in Bahama Village passed the Reading FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test), compared to nearly 75% of White students residing in Key West. In fact, the 2006 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey indicated the highest risk factors for Bahama Village children are Lack of Commitment to School, Family History of Antisocial Behavior and Poor Family Management. In neighborhood schools, parental involvement is less than 30% and 10% of the students were absent 21 days or more, quite significant for an elementary school. Nearly half of all juvenile arrests in Monroe County come from Bahama Village. “I want girls to feel great about being women of color. There are many women around the world doing extraordinary things, despite significant obstacles. I am living proof that any girl from the projects can succeed if she puts her mind to it,” Armour says.

For more information, visit www.teachuswrite.com.

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i Control Power Girls™ is a non-profit literacy, public speaking, and entrepreneurship program for at-risk girls residing in the Bahama Village community of Key West, Florida. The parent company is Choices i Control Academic Program, Inc.