Dr. Janice Johnson Dias

This author has written 193 articles

Representation Matters – #1000BlackGirlBooks

Book reading is an essential component of cognitive and social development for children and adolescents. Reading a lot is associated with things that might be expected, such as larger vocabularies, better comprehension, and stronger writing ability. But reading also opens up the world to the reader, increasing children’s knowledge about how things work, the history of the world, and the nature of social relationships. Reading helps students to focus for longer periods of time and to persist in other academic tasks. In short, reading is a fundamental skill--a building block of other important processes.

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#InvestInGirls Leadership

Hello #SuperFriend, Thank you for investing in the 2015 Super Camp Scholarship Fund! Thanks to your investment, GrassROOTS Community Foundation served 17 #SuperGirls and 5 Super Boys. Your investment helped us foster social action in girls, as evidenced by the success of #SuperGirl Marley’s #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign. We could not have done that without you!    We still need your help. We invite you to double your give in this year’s Super Camp Scholarship Fund at www.gofundme.com/investingirls. Last year, we only hit 50%…

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2016 SuperCamp Registration for Seedlings SuperGirls

SuperCamp is a family-based camp for girls of African descent. Our camp is based on psychological theories that recognize the relationship between positive racial and social identity development for children’s well-being. As a supplement to children’s educational experience, we focus on areas of African and African American history not typically included in standard school curricula. SuperGirls explore and learn the histories of cultural icons and heroes that reflect their own biographies.

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2016 SuperCamp Registration for Leaves SuperGirls

SuperCamp is a family-based camp for girls and boys of African descent. Our camp is based on psychological theories that recognize the relationship between positive racial and social identity development for children’s well-being. As a supplement to children’s educational experience, we focus on areas of African and African American history not typically included in standard school curricula. Campers explore and learn the histories of cultural icons and heroes that reflect their own biographies.

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Invest in Youth

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill speaking on the significance of young people being at the center of social change, and the importance of supporting organizations like GrassROOTS Community Foundation to strengthen and build communities.   Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading intellectual voices in the country. He is the host of HuffPost Live and BET News, as well as a political contributor for CNN. He is also Distinguished Professor of African American Studies at Morehouse College.

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NJ 11-Year-Old Launches #1000BlackGirlBooks: Fox29

WTXF - 11-year-old Marley Dias, who was born in Philadelphia and lives in New Jersey, noticed recently that none of the books she was assigned at school featured anyone who looked like her.   So she responded by launching a book drive called #1000blackgirlbooks, with the goal of collecting 1,000 books featuring black female protagonists by the end of January. She plans to donate them to a library in Jamaica, with some of the books coming to Philadelphia as well.   Marley appeared on Good…

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