MOULTRIE — “The Raising Her Project,” which falls under the auspices of the “Teens Have Visions 2” organization, is an initiative to promote healthy relationships between mothers and daughters through workshops and events with the aim to address mental health awareness, child abuse, underaged drinking, suicide prevention, teen dating violence and teen pregnancy.

“The Raising Her Project is a project that we came up with under our mentor program called ‘Teens Have Visions 2’ and we were getting ready to apply for a grant with United Way but we wanted to design a community impact project under that so not only the teen could benefit from it but their mothers,” said Michele Smith, founder and director of Teens Have Visions 2.

She said they started out with girls, so, based on the feedback that she got from them in the mentoring program, she wanted to help mothers develop better relationships with their daughters.

“Me and my daughter, we can definitely relate to some things that we kind of went through when she started her cycle and getting into that pre-teen stage,” she said.

She said that she also saw a need in the community because they have seen a lot of teen pregnancy, teen dating violence and suicide ideation.

“So I wanted this project to be impactful not only for the teens but for their mothers so that we could come together and sort of brainstorm on what we could do to help teens stay focused, stay encouraged, not get distracted and just know that they are beautiful,” Smith said.

She said that they have different workshops that they want to bring to the community and, recently, they held their “Saving Her Heart” workshop, which teaches CPR and first aid. She wants to offer mothers free CPR certification, she said.

“I’m very big on educating my community about health because my brother was 15 when he was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure,” said Smith.

She said that her brother’s disease, over the years, progressed to congestive heart failure and her mother was with him when he died of a massive heart attack.

“And she didn’t know CPR and so that’s one of the things I try to emphasize,” she said.

She said that she believed that the knowledge of CPR and the skill to perform it were really important in the community and the mother-daughter CPR certification classes will be ongoing, so she wants to get the word out about them.

“Even if they don’t want to get certified and they just want to attend and learn the skill, they can always come back and get certified,” Smith said.

Another workshop that the Raising Her Project offers is “Beauty 4 Ashes,” which is a confidence workshop for mothers and daughters. Smith said that putting on make-up was one of the things that she and her daughter do together. She said the workshop would allow the participants to get creative with make-up, styling, dressing and hair. Smith said this would be a great way to make them feel good about theirselves.

“Dance With Her,” a Zumba workshop that is offered, was started because Smith had started her own fitness journey two years ago. She thought that Zumba, which is dance-based, would be a fun fit as a health workshop for the Raising Her Project. For more information about the workshops that are offered by the Raising Her Project, check-out their Facebook page or email at teenshavevisions2@gmail.com.