On Her Side fosters positivity in young women

By Adelle Ellis, Times Reporter

Starting as an idea to help the youth in the community and focusing on ways to help young women realize their potential, since 2016 On Her Side (OHS) has been fostering a supportive and accepting environment where women support and empower other young women.
The group was created by three local sisters – Kortnee Paiha, Brooke Paiha Chapman and Brittyn Paiha – who were soon joined by their youngest sister, Khloe Paiha.
“It is important for us all to be involved in OHS because we truly love the girls in the program and want to help them flourish,” said Kortnee. “Once we realized just how impactful OHS could be, we knew we had to ensure its success; thus, we all banded together to help.”
The founding sisters all grew up attending public schools in Strathmore and say that although they had some positive experiences, they realized that for the most part schools can house toxic environments where issues like bullying are more commonplace. They found that growing up in a family of five women, their environment at home was a lot more supportive as it was easy to love and support one another, but they noticed a lack of support in the schools they attended.
Some of the founders personally dealt with being bullied at school to a very strong degree, and credit their strong support system at home for how they were able to maintain their positivity and do their best to ignore some of the cruelty they had to endure.
Since then, they’ve realized that not every young woman has a large support system to turn to when things get tough. That’s why they decided to create a program to be their support system.
“We want to provide a safe, supportive and positive atmosphere for the girls to be themselves and recover from the stresses of school, home, family and friends,” said Kortnee. “We want girls to understand their potential and realize that the only person they should work to impress is themselves. We hope to imbue a sense of confidence and courage within the girls so they can accomplish their goals and dreams.”
On Her Side holds weekly group meetings for girls aged 11-14 every Tuesday after school at Hope Church. Meetings begin with a positivity circle where members can talk about their week; that is followed by an official activity and some treats.
Every month offers activities catered to specific values and ideas, such as integrity, charity and kindness, self-respect, positivity, confidence, knowledge and learning, making good choices, and friendships and relationships.
“Each month we focus on a specific value because we feel that they are extremely important for young women to understand and acquire,” said Kortnee. “We chose to focus on one value a month in order to really stress its importance and focus on teaching and explaining it.”
She added that with the value of integrity as an example, participants play a variety of games focusing on being team players and not cheating.
While some of the activities are more lecture-based, they also strive for the members to have fun by offering an even mix of both fun and informative activities.
OHS is a self-funded group that depends on community support as well as funding from various corporations and government programs.
Parents who are interested in enrolling their daughters into OHS are encouraged to contact the group. The program is completely free; however, the program capacity is 10 young women and there is currently one spot open for this year.
OHS hopes more parents contact the group if interested in getting their daughters to join as they are hoping to expand the program to include more dates, times and locations if there is more interest.
“I would encourage every young girl interested in the program to join. OHS is a safe, positive and fun space that encourages new friendships and teaches new skills,” said Kortnee. “There is no disadvantage of joining and we love each and every girl who decides to attend.”