Cindy Mendoza is a mother of three boys whose passion is motherhood.  She grew up in both Wilkinsburg and the Hill District and her grant winning project, Diverse Mothering Initiative, is a reflection of that urban childhood. The things she most values in life–writing, reading, exploration, and conversation–revolve around children or ideas and experiences she gained as a child, and she hopes to help the broader mothers-of-color community with what she has learned about effective parenting.

Diverse Mothering Initiative’s objective is to assist Pittsburgh’s minority mothers in developing their own personal templates for effective parenting in the confines of a socially supportive community. Mothers are the backbone of minority families, and when given the tools they need to develop effective parenting strategies, along with the social support necessary to apply those strategies to everyday lives, they have a real opportunity to change the way minority families function.

Newest Awesome Pittsburgh trustee Melonie Nance reports,

“We trustees were really impressed by the professional presentation of this group via their website, in addition to their great cause! We hope that our grant will help spread the word to others who may benefit from joining their supportive network.”

Low-income, minority mothers have long been the targets of some cultural hostility which implies that this particular group of mothers is not equipped to be effective parents. The stereotyping continues to exist, i.e. that black mothers are financially, emotionally and intellectually unable to raise healthy, college-bound, responsible children. Mendoza’s efforts hope to eradicate this false notion. She says,

“Effective mothering has the potential to tremendously impact minority communities. Bottom-line: moms who become better mothers make fathers better fathers, children better adults, and communities better communities.”

The grant will assist Cindy’s project in hosting seven events which enable mothers-of-color to tackle issues such as family planning, co-parenting, literacy and diversity. The events will run from September 2014 to June 2015.

You can Register here for the upcoming kick-off pampering event for women on Saturday, September 13, which takes place from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Alloy Studios on Penn Avenue in East Liberty. And you can follow Cindy’s Brown Mamas venture on the web, on Facebook, and on Twitter.