Empowering High School Girls to Lead, Learn, and Rise
Why Her Climb exists
Her Climb was founded by Rita Omokha, a Columbia University professor and award-winning journalist and author, who believes talented girls from underserved neighborhoods deserve access to the same opportunities, networks, and experiences as anyone else.
She immigrated to America from Nigeria when she was young, grew up in the South Bronx, and has spent years working in media, education, and youth mentorship. She saw a gap:
Many brilliant girls from underresourced communities were working hard in school, but rarely getting access to the rooms where opportunity actually happens.
Her Climb was created to change that.
The goal is simple: give young women the confidence, exposure, and support to lead in any space they enter.
Ambition is not a personality flaw.
Her Climb is a free leadership and career exploration program for high school girls in NYC public schools.
This is not just a one-time program. It's a multi-year experience designed to help scholars grow, explore their interests, and prepare for college and beyond.
We recruit during freshman year of high school and stay with our scholars through age 25.
And yes — scholars get paid to participate.
Adolescent girls are navigating a moment of extraordinary pressure and possibility.
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.
of high school girls report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.
seriously considered suicide, with rates significantly higher for girls of color.
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.
Her Climb prepares girls to lead the rooms that shape culture and capital.
The two years that were taken from them
In March 2020, schools across New York City closed. The girls in our inaugural cohort were eight, nine, and ten years old.
They spent third, fourth, and fifth grade — the years children learn to raise a hand, present to a room, take a risk in front of peers, and make a friend across a lunch table — behind screens and inside masks. COVID-19 didn't just interrupt their education; it interrupted the specific developmental window children learn how to be in a room with other people.
This is clear in what our inaugural cohort has told us. Nearly every gain our scholars have named since joining Her Climb has been a social one: public speaking, speaking up, reaching out first, feeling comfortable being seen. The most-cited challenge in our first Summer Impact report was connecting with new people. What can read as a soft outcome is, for these girls, the recovery of something concrete and specific that was taken from them at a formative age.
Every scholar Her Climb will ever serve will have lived through this. The youngest members of future cohorts were even younger when the pandemic began. The developmental gap does not close on its own — it closes through exactly what Her Climb provides: consistent, structured, relationship-centered time in a safe space, with high expectations and real stakes.
Institutions that open their doors to our scholars
Her Climb scholars have access to open dress rehearsals at one of the world's most prestigious performing arts conservatories, including The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, The Moors by Jen Silverman, The Learned Ladies by Molière, and Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, along with campus tours and workshop experiences.
All scholars receive nine 45-minute Seeds of Change leadership sessions, a research-based curriculum designed to help young women recognize and move through bias and step confidently into leadership. This programming runs throughout each scholar's inaugural full year with Her Climb.
Scholars take part in actor training workshops with The Barrow Group, including voice work, movement, and music. Founded in 1986, the New York City theater company and school is known for storytelling grounded in reality, spontaneity, and human connection. More than 4,000 students train there each year, and Time Out New York, Backstage, and CBS New York consistently name it one of the city's top places to study.
As an official NJTL (National Junior Tennis & Learning) chapter, Her Climb scholars gain access to tennis clinics and USTA Foundation's broader educational programming, part of a national network built on Arthur Ashe's own vision for access through sport. Because of their participation, scholars will also be eligible to apply to select scholarships not open to the general public.
Scholars and Her Climb team members have access to a dedicated mental health portal, connecting them with licensed, culturally matched therapists through insurance-covered care.
Our scholars are paired with a rotating pool of women mentors who bring real classroom and leadership experience directly into our scholars' lives.
Leadership, access, wellness, and sisterhood
Her Climb is not a traditional enrichment program. From day one, we committed to an elite and challenging experience for our scholars, built on four pillars: leadership, access, wellness, and sisterhood.
Training, roles, and the expectation that scholars will run the room before they leave.
Columbia, Juilliard, Stanford, US Open, CNN, CBS, and more, alongside the professionals inside them — in person, not on a screen.
Licensed, culturally matched mental health care, and time built in to use it.
A cohort that stays theirs through high school, college, and after.
Our Four Career Tracks
Scholars are exposed to four industries where women remain underrepresented in leadership.
Entrepreneurship, leadership, financial literacy, and how companies grow.
Design, storytelling, performance, and careers in creative industries.
Writing, interviewing, media literacy, and how stories shape the world.
Coding, AI tools, product design, and innovation.
Our curriculum intentionally teaches what is often left implicit: how to communicate across power dynamics, how to build professional relationships, how to navigate elite spaces without shrinking, and how to use their voice to contribute to public conversations that shape their communities. This is leadership formation.
Leadership also means feeling confident in places scholars may not have experienced before.
These experiences build confidence, curiosity, and cultural fluency — the skills that help people succeed in many different environments.
- —Museum visits
- —Broadway and performing arts experiences
- —Nature trips to places like Bear Mountain
- —Industry field trips across NYC
- —Golf
- —Tennis
- —Swimming
- —Horseback riding
We're looking for students who are
Perfect grades are not required. Curiosity, effort, and a willingness to grow are.
Our selection process prioritizes potential, intellectual curiosity, and demonstrated resilience. We are building future leaders, not rewarding past advantage.
- —Girls attending a New York City public high school
- —Freshmen in high school
- —No minimum GPA
- —Able to attend the full three-week July intensive at Columbia
- —During year-round programming, available to attend all mandatory scheduled Saturday workshops and field trips, 1:00 to 5:00 PM
- —A personal statement, 250 words maximum
- —Your resume, or a list of your activities
- —Your most recent transcript
- —The name and school email of one teacher who will recommend you
- —Your parent or guardian's name, email and phone
- —A recent photo of yourself
Our goal is to enroll students and walk with them until they step confidently into the futures they choose.
Summer Intensive Stipend
Fall Engagement Award
Spring Engagement Award
- —Mentorship from professionals
- —College preparation and leadership training
- —Field trips across New York City
- —A college scholarship upon completion of the program
Most importantly, scholars join a community of ambitious girls supporting each other.
Stipends are tied to attendance and participation. The full terms are shared with scholars and families once they join.
What the commitment actually is
The calendar
What a single year asks of a scholar.
A three-week mandatory intensive at Columbia University in July, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM. Specific dates depend on each year's weeks.
College Hack Week, one week.
On-campus mandatory workshops, 1:00–5:00 PM.
Field trips across New York City.
A program that grows with our scholars
Her Climb is a multi-year program, starting with rising sophomores.
Summer intensive at Columbia University, plus year-round mentorship and Saturday workshops.
Scholars deepen their exposure to each track and begin mentoring the next cohort.
Scholars continue mentoring lower cohorts and prepare for college.
We stay with scholars through college and early career with tailored guidance.
Apply
The application is ten questions and four things to send:
- —What's your full name?
- —When's your birthday?
- —How do you describe your ethnicity?
- —What's your email address?
- —Best contact phone number for you?
- —Where do you live?
- —Who is your parent or guardian?
- —What is the name of your high school?
- —Which track do you want?
- —Upload your resume
- —Your personal statement
- —Upload your transcript
- —Upload a photo of yourself
- —Your teacher recommendation
- —Her Climb required policies review
Dates for the 2027 cycle
What partnering with Her Climb asks of a school
We recruit through direct partnerships with public high schools, working closely with guidance counselors, College and Career offices, and educators who know which students can benefit most.
Retention is built into our model. Every student receives a monthly touchpoint with our team and their mentor. Stipends, meals, transportation fares, and wellness support remove the friction points that often force students to disengage.
An introduction to students, a teacher willing to write a recommendation, and a point of contact. There is no cost to the school and no cost to families.
We rely on the school administration’s nomination to identify the students who stand to gain the most.
- —Summer intensive: three weeks at Columbia in July, Monday to Friday, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
- —Year-round: mandatory Saturday workshops and field trips, 1:00 to 5:00 PM.
- —College Hack Week: one week in August, rising junior and senior year.
All of it is outside school hours.
Every scheduled Saturday is mandatory and there is no partial-attendance policy. Please only nominate students who can hold that commitment across the year.
Students apply directly at apply.herclimb.org and send one teacher recommendation. Grades are not a primary criterion; they are read as one part of a larger picture. Her Climb reviews every application and interviews finalists.
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.
Sixteen girls arrived nervous. They left more certain.
After our inaugural 2026 Summer Intensive, which ran from July 6 to July 24, every scholar 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.
All 16 scholars responded — every voice in the cohort is represented here.
Average rating, with 11 of 16 scholars scoring the program a 5.
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.
What grew
Asked to name three strengths they discovered or deepened, scholars converged on a single cluster: the courage to be seen and heard.
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.
In their words
“I am very shy, however the girls within this program have allowed me to step into this extroverted side of myself that I never thought existed.”
“… I saw myself for the first time fully comfortable and confident in my skin.”
“I’m actually capable of reaching out to people and associating with people outside of my home.”
“It went from light heartedness to a deep sisterhood that hopefully will be there forever.”
“I’m lost, and that is completely okay — I will find myself with the help of my sisters and my mentor.”
“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.”
Frequently asked
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.