Green Generations is founded on passion and experience. Every child deserves to be happy and every parent and educator deserves to feel empowered with the tools necessary to nurture a child’s emotional well-being. Incorporated in 2011, Green Generations began its pilot programs in 2012 and has since continued to grow throughout New York City school communities.
Our story is a collective story that many of us can relate to, especially those of us who may have experienced trauma in our lives. While trauma looks different for each of us, finding healthy ways of processing our trauma(s) will allow all of us to feel unburdened to make healthy decisions for ourselves, and will allow us to be more thoughtful and engaged contributors within our communities.
Our team benefits from having experts with diverse backgrounds, including personal experiences in dealing with trauma. This lens of shared understanding is why Green Generations is anchored in empowering children and our school communities with self-esteem and mindfulness tools and education. We designed our workshop model and curriculum to embed self-care rituals into our programming that provides moments for reflection and emotional wellness while giving children much-needed and necessary brain breaks in their academic day. It is only when we learn how to self-advocate by listening to our hearts and learning how to express our emotions and heal our hearts can we then turn to focusing our energy on being thoughtful contributors. We cannot take care of our communities or our planet until we know how to take care of ourselves.
At Green Generations, we believe that everyone, no matter their age, can make a positive contribution both great and small. We are committed to this journey of empowerment so that each child recognizes and celebrates their innate gifts. This process then allows them to begin to blossom and thrive, cultivating their gifts into action – for themselves, their community, and the planet. We are nurturing generations of community leaders and ethical contributors.
In New York City, 1 in 3 children live in poverty.
1 in 5 kindergarteners is obese in New York City.
64% of children in the Bronx live in single-parent households; 42% in Brooklyn.
Green Generations recognizes that poverty and its related stresses have a devastating effect on a child’s ability to succeed.
As the statistics above show, children in under-served communities experience multiple obstacles that prevent them from reaching their fullest potential. The breakdown of families and communities, and the extreme focus on academic standards leave many students without a support system.
Our children deserve the nurturing guidance to learn how to navigate their emotions, become self-confident, assertive, and develop the ability to have healthy relationships with others. These are necessary qualities for a successful life.
We are dedicated to reducing these barriers to academic and social success by empowering children and families with the tools necessary to alleviate the stresses of poverty while also inspiring generations of change-makers within their communities.
We establish long-term partnerships with school communities already overburdened with a core population who disproportionately suffer from poverty and family stresses.
Through these partnerships, we deliver a tailored, research-based and social- emotional program. Our program is uniquely structured around Green Generations’s five core principles, which are:
- Self-esteem and Mindfulness
- Nutritional Empowerment
- Environmental Stewardship
- Ethical & Compassionate Leadership
- Gratitude & Celebration
These principles help children develop self-esteem, self-care, resilience, and leadership skills, as well as provide the building blocks for making healthy decisions.
