Shakera Williams is the Founder of RISE. Shakera has a Master in Social Work. She is also provisionally licensed to practice counseling. Shakera created RISE because she knew it took many women pouring into her over the years for her to be where she is. Shakera is currently working to take RISE from the inspirational messages every week to the fully operating nonprofit she envisions it to be.
Resilient Inspired Spiritual Excellence will provide educational tools for women to grow and live fulfilling lives. The importance of our education is it is designed to target dysfunctional patterns and ways of life that have hindered generations of women in their family. RISE’s main goal is to create a new narrative for women through educating them on life skills for success.
Webinars and Classes
RISE wants to teach life-skills. We plan to do this by educating women about finaces, the workforce, housing disparities, higher education, naviagting SNAP, Housing and Urban Development, and Social Security Benefits.
RISE covers these areas because too often women in need do not realize how much the community they are apart of has to support them. They also may lack the understanding why some of the resources do not work well for their circumstance or situation. Our goal is to find the resource they qualify for and ensure that they are getting the assistance they need. We also want the women to understand that they do not have to remain in need and with time they can be more independent and own something of their own.
Counseling
We want to create a space for healing. Giving someone resources is not all they need. They need to deal with the issues that brought them to the our door in the first place. We want support the women with counseling as an option. RISE wants the women to know they can heal from what brought them to our door and break patterns that recreate the same hardships over and over. You can shove resources all day but we want the women to know that their ingrain life-style patterns have to change.
Support Groups and Outreach
Our support group meetings are designed to give the women a space to grow together. It is a way of helping them to know that they are not alone. We will meet bi-weekly. The group allows the ladies a space to feel supported and know they are not in it alone. Each topic is used based on the need of the women who sign up each month. We allow the women to shape their support but we are there to make sure they are digging into the issues they face and know they can overcome.
OUTREACH
RISE wants the community to know we are partners so each month we want toseek ways to ensure RISE is making a difference in the community. We will communicate with legal aid, domestic violence crisis, child welfare and adult welfare to see ways we can be of assistance in our community.
Resilient Inspired Spiritual Excellence R.I.S.E. 