Her Climb Media Kit: Leadership, College Access & Mental Health for High School Girls in NYC
Her Climb
Media Kit 2026

Let’s rise together

Her Climb is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and a free multi-year leadership and college access program for high school girls from underserved communities.

www.herclimb.org New York, NY 212-479-8206 press@herclimb.org EIN 39-4670274
Media Kit 2026 media.herclimb.org
Her Climb
Let’s rise
together
www.herclimb.orgpress@herclimb.org212-479-8206EIN 39-4670274
At a glance

Her Climb at a glance

Her Climb
Who we are

Her Climb, Inc. is a free, multi-year leadership and college access program for public high school girls from underserved communities across New York City. Scholars join in their freshman year of high school, and Her Climb stays with them until age 25.

Program model

Four pillars: leadership, access, wellness, and sisterhood. Four career tracks: business, journalism, STEM, and creative arts.

Year 1
  • Cohort 1: 15 scholars from public high schools across New York City (16 completed Summer Intensive I)
  • Summer Intensive I, July 6–24, 2026: 100% survey response, 4.6 out of 5 overall rating, 94% reported a positive emotional shift
  • Year-round programming: 15 on-campus Saturdays, 1:00–5:00 PM, September through May
  • PSAT prep, college access programming, and College Hack Week (Aug. 9–13, 2027)
  • Summer Intensive II: July 12–30, 2027
Programming partners
  • The Juilliard School
  • Stanford University's VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab
  • USTA Foundation (official NJTL chapter)
  • Teach For America New York
  • Child Mind Institute
  • The Barrow Group
  • Rula
Current projects
  • An original animated short film written from our scholars' own words
  • A financial literacy app for our scholars
Recent coverage

Her Climb and its founder have been featured in Forbes, ELLE, and CNN.

Team

Led by a founder and executive director, a board of directors, a part-time program assistant, and a team of volunteer leaders in college access, school partnerships, storytelling, and program design.

www.herclimb.org press@herclimb.org EIN 39-4670274 212-479-8206
Who we are

A multi-year leadership pathway

Her Climb serves girls with talent, ambition, and drive who often lack access to the networks, mentorship, and industry exposure that shape opportunity.

Her Climb is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit expanding opportunity for high school girls from underserved communities through a multi-year leadership pathway that begins in high school and continues through college and early career.

The program combines leadership development, wellness support, mentorship, and direct exposure to industries that shape culture, capital, and public narrative.

Students begin with a Summer Intensive held on Columbia University’s campus and continue with year-round programming designed to strengthen confidence, build professional networks, and develop the skills needed to navigate competitive academic and professional spaces.

The organization’s long-term model ensures students do not simply participate in isolated programs. They grow within a sustained cohort and leadership pathway that prepares them to enter college and professional environments confident, connected, and ready to lead.

Her Climb is an independent nonprofit organization that collaborates with Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose support has included workshops, campus tours, and career and admissions counseling for our scholars.

What we do

What Her Climb actually does

Her Climb is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to expanding opportunity for young women from underserved communities. We provide a free, multi-year leadership pathway that combines academic preparation, cultural fluency, civic engagement, and industry-specific career exposure.

Our mission is to ensure girls arrive at college and beyond confident, connected, prepared to participate, and to lead in their communities, professions, and civic life.

The landscape

Adolescent girls are navigating a moment of extraordinary pressure and possibility.

43.4%

of high school girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2025, compared with 23.9% of boys.

27%

of high school girls seriously considered suicide in 2023, compared with 14% of boys.

Women remain underrepresented in STEM, media leadership, venture-backed business, and executive roles.

The largest drop-offs for women occur not at entry, but in confidence, persistence, access to networks, and early promotion pathways.

Girls are enrolling in college at high rates. Yet access alone does not translate into influence, civic participation, or leadership within the institutions that shape public life. Too few are prepared to navigate elite institutions, build strategic networks, or translate talent into long-term leadership.

Her Climb was built to address that gap. We are preparing girls to lead the rooms that shape culture and capital.

The care gap

National research shows girls carry a heavier mental health burden, and many go without care.

1 in 4

adolescent girls report moderate or severe anxiety symptoms. Severe symptoms are almost three times as common among girls as among boys.

43.4%

of high school girls felt so persistently sad or hopeless that they stopped doing their usual activities, compared with 23.9% of boys.

~1 in 2

adolescents with moderate anxiety symptoms received no mental health treatment in the past year. Students of color and uninsured teens are among the least likely to receive care.

CDC researchers point to peer mentoring, support groups, trusted relationships with adults, and partnerships with community organizations as promising ways to close this gap. Her Climb offers each of these through our mentors, our sisterhood, and our wellness pillar.

Through our partnership with Child Mind Institute, and with their families’ consent, scholars have access to private, one-on-one wellness sessions, bringing expert care into a space where they already feel at home.

The window they lost

Our girls were 8 and 9 when schools shut down in 2020. They were in third, fourth, or fifth grade: the critical years when kids learn how to take a social risk, like making a friend across a table. Instead, they spent them behind a screen.

COVID didn’t just cost them academically. It cost them the specific developmental window where we learn how to be in a room with other people.

The thru-line

It’s never just the activity, the field trip, or the site visit. It’s the intentional thru-line from the activity to a real outcome.

Access to a room, a track, a relationship, leading to a girl who leaves knowing she belongs there.

Rita Omokha, founder of Her Climb
Rita Omokha, Founder & Executive Director Download headshot ↓
Founder

Rita Omokha

Rita Omokha is the founder of Her Climb and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She is an award-winning journalist and author whose work focuses on young people, education, and civic agency. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, where she finished at the top of her class, her reporting and teaching explore how access, mentorship, and opportunity shape the futures of the next generation.

As a first-generation immigrant, Omokha created Her Climb to provide girls with what she once needed: direction, community, and the confidence to enter rooms where power and opportunity circulate.

Through Her Climb, she is building a long-term leadership pathway that equips high school girls with the mentorship, networks, and cultural fluency needed to navigate college, industry, and public life.

Read the founder’s statement →
Her Climb announcement in Forbes

“Her Climb Is Creating A Path For Girls Who Deserve More”

As Omokha shared with me, “I’ve seen a clear divide in who has access to leadership development, professional networks, and meaningful college guidance." Her Climb, an organization that Omokha recently founded, "exists so today’s young women don’t have to navigate those pathways alone.”

Read the full feature →
Program

How the program works

Summer Intensive

A three-week program held on Columbia University’s campus where rising high school sophomores select one of four tracks: Business, Creative Arts, Journalism, or STEM. Students complete hands-on projects, meet industry professionals, and build their cohort community.

Learn about the Summer Intensive →

Year-Round Programming

Saturday workshops, mentorship meetings, wellness programming, and enrichment experiences that continue throughout the academic year.

Learn about year-round programming →

Career Tracks

Business Creative Arts Journalism STEM

Each track connects students with professionals working in industries where women remain underrepresented.

Program Pillars

Leadership Access Wellness Sisterhood

These principles shape curriculum design, partnerships, and student support.

Key outcomes

Our 5 key outcomes

01

Emotional resilience, rebuilt intentionally

This is the core of Her Climb. We’re not just teaching skills. We are deliberately rebuilding the capacity to be seen, to take a risk in front of people, to recover from embarrassment and try again. That’s the pandemic-specific gap, and it’s the outcome every other outcome sits on top of.

02

Real, tracked developmental growth

Not “this was a fun summer” or “that was a fun workshop.” We look at documented shifts: from anxious to confident, to standing up and presenting in a room, to making and keeping eye contact.

03

Career exposure that becomes identity

One scholar found her future goal of becoming a surgeon after visiting Lincoln Hospital. Another now names journalism as something she could picture doing for a living after one newsroom exercise. Exposure at this age is the first sketch of a future self.

04

A sustained relationship, not a one-time program

We recruit scholars in freshman year of high school and stay with them through college and early career, until they are 25. The developmental gap doesn’t close on its own. We close it through weekly touchpoints, including a group chat, and through consistency: showing up again and again until a girl trusts that this room, and Her Climb, will still be there.

05

A model that listens to itself

We listen to our scholars; they inform how we scale programmatically for future cohorts. For example, after our inaugural Summer Intensive, scholars told us they wanted more creative arts programming, longer breaks, better food, and a longer summer. We immediately began working on all four, from expanding creative arts experiences to seeking a long-term nutrition partner. We work for our scholars, and that responsiveness is itself an outcome: proof this is being built with our girls, not just for them.

Impact

The inaugural cohort

15

scholars in the inaugural cohort (16 completed Summer Intensive I)

8

Students represent 8 New York City public high schools

44%

first-generation college-bound students

87

Average GPA

Reach

Participants come from all five boroughs of New York City

Cohort demographics
  • 37.5% Black
  • 43.75% Hispanic/Latina
  • 18.75% Multiracial/Other
Access

Students receive stipends to ensure participation is accessible to all families.

Sixteen girls arrived nervous.
They left more certain.

Every scholar in our inaugural Summer Intensive completed an end-of-summer reflection. In their own words, the change was not primarily academic — it was the moment each girl decided she was allowed to take up space.

100%
Survey completion

All 16 scholars responded — every voice in the cohort is represented here.

4.6/5
Overall experience

Average rating, with 11 of 16 scholars scoring the program a 5.

94%
Left in a positive state

15 of 16 chose a word like proud, grateful, confident, or prepared.

The shift, in one word

We asked each scholar for one word describing her first day, then one word describing how she feels now. Nothing captures the program’s effect more plainly.

July 6 — 88% arrived anxious

nervous · scared · anxious · overwhelmed · uncomfortable · pessimistic · awkward

July 24 — how they feel now

certified · proud · grateful · confident · peaceful · prepared · excited · comfortable · happy · amazing

What grew

Asked to name three strengths they discovered or deepened, scholars converged on a single cluster: the courage to be seen and heard.

Public speaking9 of 16
Confidence & self-worth8 of 16
Connecting with others7 of 16
Responsibility & follow-through5 of 16
Where exposure led

Every scholar could name a track she felt drawn to — and defend why. At their age, that articulation is the outcome; the distribution will keep moving.

Creative Arts11
Business2
Journalism2
STEM1
The moment it clicked

Asked to describe a moment they saw themselves differently, scholars pointed overwhelmingly at presenting their work aloud — brand boards, future-self boards, teleprompter reads — and at site visits to CNN and Accenture, where a dream job stopped being abstract. Almost none named a specific lesson or worksheet — though tennis was a resounding favorite. The turning point was consistently the moment a girl was asked to stand up, be looked at, and speak, and discovered the room was on her side.

Turning points

Journalism and STEM produced the clearest turning points. One scholar found a career she now names as her goal after spending time with CNN’s Sara Sidner during an extended tour and visit to their studios; another cited the Columbia Journalism School newsroom exercise as the first work she could picture doing for a living.

Our scholar most interested in STEM chose the track to build toward becoming a surgeon, and left the Lincoln Hospital visit more eager to learn than she arrived.

The teleprompter session became the cohort’s most-cited moment of collective support.

In their words
“I learned that I'm a likeable person.”
Aliana, Cohort ’26
“I let myself feel uncomfortable to be able to get comfortable.”
Cyra, Cohort ’26
“Usually I'm shy to present. But presenting my future self board in front of my peers, I didn't feel anxious.”
Serenity, Cohort ’26
“This summer is the start of a new improved version of my life, and I can't wait to see where I go from here.”
Paloma, Cohort ’26
“Yesterday I saw myself for the first time fully comfortable and confident in my skin.”
Zanna, Cohort ’26
“I see a family I can make. I see my sisters.”
Shanarani, Cohort ’26
What else we heard

We told our scholars to keep it real. Four requests came up repeatedly when scholars were asked what they wished we had done differently.

Deepen creative arts

69% chose the Creative Arts track, and several noted that site visits skewed toward business and journalism. They asked for more theater, dance, fashion, and design.

More time to breathe

Scholars asked for longer lunches, outdoor time, and unstructured space to bond — noting long stretches seated in one room.

Better food, real choice

The most consistent request across the cohort: more variety and healthier options at mealtimes.

Make it longer

Scholars asked us to extend the Summer Intensive from three weeks to six.

“We are actively working on every one of these. On food especially — we know the economical route of pizza, chicken fingers, and fries is not the healthiest way to feed girls we are asking to show up sharp every morning. We are seeking a long-term nutrition partner so that the table matches the ambition of the room.”Rita Omokha, Founder & Executive Director

Based on end-of-summer reflections collected July 2026 from all 16 Summer Intensive scholars. Quotations are scholars’ own words, attributed by first name only.

The numbers, and why they matter more than they look

Our first impact data was proof of our hypothesis about what the pandemic cost young people, especially girls from under-resourced communities who already have fewer services and resources at their disposal.

Nearly every gain our girls named after the Summer Intensive was a social one: public speaking, speaking up, reaching out first, feeling comfortable being seen. One of the biggest challenges across the cohort, from what they told us directly and in the end-of-summer reflection survey, was connecting with new people.

For our girls, at this specific, tender age, that’s the recovery of something that was taken from them.—Rita Omokha, Founder

Student voice

“Everyone deserves an education and a sense of belonging. When you have a community guiding you, learning becomes less overwhelming.”—Junasia BW., Harlem

“I want to build confidence in my voice and learn how to explain my ideas so people hear me.”—Allizon G., Harlem

Partner perspective

“This program fills a gap our school has never been able to fill on our own.”—School partner

Team

Who guides Her Climb

Her Climb is guided by leaders with expertise in education, youth development, journalism, design, finance, and organizational strategy.

See the complete team on our website →

Leadership

Founder and Executive Director Programming Consultants Publicity Director Director of Video & Storytelling

Our Board

Rita OmokhaChair

Founder of Her Climb; leads the board and keeps it aligned with the mission and strategic goals.

Anne-Lise AntolinosVice Chair

Partner at The Berkeley Partnership, leading large-scale transformation programs; guides fundraising strategy and donor engagement.

Taylor GarreDirector, Communications & Storytelling

Head of US Video for Global Marketing at Goldman Sachs, formerly of CBS News, NowThis, and Cheddar; shapes Her Climb’s voice across video, social, and media.

Pamela McKelvin-JeffersonDirector, Programs

Former Assistant Dean for Strategic Initiatives at Columbia Journalism School; guides the student experience, including college access and academic pathways.

Claire McNamaraDirector, Corporate Engagement

Managing Director at Accenture; oversees corporate partnerships, sponsorship, and in-kind support.

See the full board on our website →
Press contact

Interviews, speaking, and media requests

Additional assets and files are available upon request

Press contact

For all requests, including interviews and speaking engagements, please reach out to:

Sakura Komiyama Amend

Email the press team →