EVANSTON — Evanston’s Soroptimist International (SI) recently brought the “Dream It, Be It” course to Horizon High School. Eight young women participated in the four-week course that met from 8-9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays in February and March.

Soroptimist is a global volunteer organization that provides women and girls with access to education and training they need to achieve economic empowerment through its Dream programs. SI Evanston is committed to gender equality, empowerment for women and girls, education for women and girls, and diversity and fellowship for women and girls from varied backgrounds and perspectives to work together to improve the lives of women and girls.

The “Dream It, Be It” course is a small group mentoring program with a curriculum to help girls in secondary schools to determine their dreams and learn how to set goals to reach them, how to overcome obstacles, what to do about stress, and to meet with career mentors to help them toward achieving their dreams.

The local Soroptimist members leading the course at Horizon High School were Wendy Sather, Harriet Beck, Stacey Fry-Morretti and Kayne Pyatt.

Throughout the four weeks of the course, there was an activity or game that led into a different topic.

The first day of class was spent getting to know each other, identifying rules for the structure of the class, and identifying qualities they admire in others and an assignment of a dream collage to bring back to share at the next class.

Work on identifying personal values and skills took up the second class along with each member sharing their dream collage. As the students moved to the next session, they were able to associate their personal and work values with possible careers and began to identify personal goals and achievable action steps they could take to reach their goals.

During class on the fourth day, the students were asked to reflect on possible obstacles faced by women in professional life and to create flexible solutions to these obstacles and how they personally might address their own obstacles.

Defining resilience and ways to put that strength into practice in their own lives was the focus of the fifth class. The following class on day six was an opportunity to identify the sources of stress in their own lives and discover strategies for managing and coping with that stress.

Two professional mentors were brought to the seventh class. The majority of students had identified teaching and the health field as possible careers. Retired registered nurse Leann Morey and ECDC (Evanston Child Development Center) Director of Preschool Amanda Hansen came to visit with the students. The students and mentors divided into two small groups according to their preference of a possible career.

For the last class, two of the students who had been in the Dream It, Be It course from the year before came to join the group and share their own experiences and thoughts about the course. They were all then given the opportunity to pick a craft to paint. All of the students then enjoyed spending the time painting and visiting.

At the end of the class period, each student was given a gift bag and the two students who completed all of their assignments were rewarded with certificates of completion from Soroptimist International.