We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jasmine Young. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jasmine below.

Jasmine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

RHODA Generation mission is to help every young lady inspire, restore and maintain a sense of belonging in self, family and in community. As a young girl I’ve always wanted to make an impact on the youth. I was set on working with at-risk youth to help the generations to come. My undergrad is in Criminal Justice and law studies. I had an internship with the state of Wisconsin as a juvenile probation and parole officer. I had a second intern with young women who were sex trafficked. The youngest I worked with was 9 years old. I was sadden to see this and wanted to do something about our young ladies. As I grew older, I began to write the vision and make it plain to God. I want to inspire, restore, focus on family and the community across the nation. Currently we are located in Durham, NC and will soon begin to go across the world. We will continue to focus on sisterhood, empowerment and community service.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am Jasmine Young the Founder and Director of RHODA Generation. I am a native of Milwaukee, WI. I graduated from Marquette University and received my bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice and Law Studies. My experience is working in Trauma Informed-Family Focused-Community Based practice at Lad Lake organization, which their mission was to guide the growth of at risk youth in order that they reach their potential and live responsibly. Specifically, I provided counsel/guidance to 12-18 whom were sex trafficked. Additionally, I interned for Southwest Keys Program as a juvenile probation and parole case manager. My passion is to serve and advocate for youth, specifically to enhance their self-confidence, decision making strategies, and leadership skills.

RHODA is my mentoring program for young women ages 12-18 where we focus on life skills such as finances, career, and healthy relationships. Our three pillars are sisterhood, empowerment and community service.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

To be apart of RHODA Generation as a youth it is completely free. However, myself and my team decided that we would collect dues amongst ourselves to feed our youth during sessions, purchase materials to teach our lessons, and give gifts to keep them motivated. We began to do some fundraising to grow our funds. We had our first vendor fair April 23,2022 which bought in funds to help the vision. We became a 501c3 so we could apply for grants and now we are having our first ball October 30,2022 where we were able to ask for sponsorships. It has never been easy but the journey is quite beautiful as it unfolds.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social media is pretty tricky with all of the new tricks and tips daily that come out. I believe the key factor is to remain consistent. I try to show up weekly in some form rather it be on the story, a post or a reel but I’m consistent. This has kept me in the face of the audience. We would love to have more follow our journey but we know that takes time. Keeping the audience informed of what we are doing so they may get involved has built our social media presence as well. We are having our first ball October 30,2022 and have heavily promoted that. Because this is promoting our youth, we have had so many people cheer us on and begin to follow our accounts. Oftentimes when we show our sessions or community service, we gain so many followers for our journey. Social media can also be extremely overwhelming but having a business you have to constantly show up.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rhodageneration.org
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/rhoda_generation
• Facebook: RHODA GENERATION MENTOR