PERFORMANCE
SCENE & HEARD
girls ROCK
COLUMBIA
BY KALYN OYER // PHOTO BY HANNAH CLEAVELAND // DESIGN BY LISA ASHWORTH
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mpowerment stems first and foremost from embracing and loving oneself, a quality that Girls Rock Columbia instills in the form of music. This local branch of the national Girls Rock organization works year-round to plan a summer camp and various events that help boost confidence in young girls and transgender youth in the Columbia community. With the motto, “Your voice is your most powerful instrument,” Girls Rock seeks to not only grow confidence in young girls by enabling them to learn new instruments and perform a rock show debut at the end of camp, but also by making sure they know it is okay to speak up. “The ultimate goal is to foster a new generation of young women who are
thoughtfully able to engage in community advocacy and who are able to identify their own power and then use that power to promote positive social change,” says Executive Director Mollie Williamson. Williamson, a USC social work graduate student, has been working hard this year to make sure 2015’s camp is the best one yet. The Columbia branch took root in 2013 after seeing an influx of Columbia-based volunteers at the Charleston camp. Williamson was one of the founding members of the Cola division and has a deep love not only for grassroots, nonprofit efforts but the feminism movement. Her love for these two aspects of the camp has then formed into a love for music and what it offers.
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“Music is important because it is one of the few times someone has a microphone and a platform to speak and is able to really show that what you have to say matters. That’s what we should be teaching girls— it’s important for them to be heard and it’s okay for them to be loud and it’s okay for them to be angry. And there is no predetermined idea of girlhood that they have to fit into,” says Williamson. While most campers are in the 8-12 age range, youth up through the age of 17 are invited to apply for camp. However, the weeklong program brings up ideas that apply to all age ranges, from bullying and peer pressure to social justice, body image and alternative aggression. “Some of those are teen-specific, but we believe