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SOUTHFIELD — “It just started this journey of wanting to mentor others and be that safe place of healing and restoration and offer ‘I believe you’ and provide that empathy of ‘I want to hear your story.’ So that’s where it all started. Sisters Journeying Together.”
Regina C. Hall, a licensed professional counselor, is the face of female empowerment through her work with Sisters Journeying Together, a nonprofit that she started in 2019 to connect girls ages 12-19 with mentors and resources to uplift, encourage and build strong female leaders and combat negative self-images.
Sisters Journeying Together was born from Hall’s 2018 book “Mommy, I need you!” which details her story of overcoming child sexual abuse through spiritual healing, learning to forgive and finding her voice. Hall was in middle school when the abuse occurred, and she immediately reported it to her mother, who she said did not believe her.
Hall believes that in order for survivors of sexual abuse to heal from what happened to them, they have to face their trauma head-on. As a counselor, Hall began to see herself in the women and teenagers who would come to her and tell her that their families didn’t believe them.
Hall explained that she buried the abuse and didn’t realize how much it impacted her until she was an adult and married.
“I believe that it’s because I felt safe. It was almost like the sky opened up, and all of the Band-Aids surrounding it were just pulled off. I went into a depression, and I was really fighting for my life. It was like fighting for my breath,” Hall stated. “I had to go through a healing process of what had happened to me and this transformation of forgiveness. Forgiving my mom and dad. I was just left with, ‘I’m a liar.’ That followed me for a very long time. It was so important for me to tell the truth. So you don’t really know how something impacts you. That’s the way it was impacting me that my mind was saying that I was a liar. And I would question my truth.”
Through her healing, Hall was able to forgive her parents and let go of the hurt and resentment she was harboring toward her mother. She explained that she had to rewire her way of thinking and realize that forgiving someone doesn’t always mean that person will change or apologize, which happened when she approached her mother and told her she forgave her.
Hall said, “I began to understand that forgiveness is for the individual, the one who has been hurt. It’s a release. … It’s a healing.” She stated that once she allowed herself to go through the difficult and emotional process of letting go, she realized she didn’t want to be a statistic, stating, “Sexually abused people will go on to abuse others.”
Instead, Hall seeks to encourage young women and help them find their voice. As a trained speaker and coach, Hall was selected to speak on former Ohio state Rep. Les Brown’s platform during the pandemic when he did a panel for International Women’s Day. Hall was inspired by this event and wanted to do something similar, but where she could celebrate girls, so she reinvented the girls’ conference that she hosted in 2019 and recreated it around the International Day of the Girl Child in 2022, where she also brought back Sisters Journeying Together.
This year, Sisters Journeying Together brought back the International Day of the Girl Child celebration with a Women Empowering Girls Tea Party Sept. 16 at the Tapestry Banquet Hall in Southfield. The event focused on how to “stand up against bullying through respect.” The speakers included Miss Michigan for America Strong 2023 Da’Stanza Murphy, educational consultant Tresa Galloway and Loran Teas President and CEO Marci Turner.
Sisters Journeying Together reaches local young women in schools and, through technology, was able to reach over 500 girls in Lagos, Nigeria, where they provided a canoe to help girls get to and from school over contaminated water and also donated sanitary napkins.
Hall explained that she didn’t personally feel equipped to provide mentorship to boys. However, through her connections and resources, she is working on partnering with boys’ groups and male mentors to fill that gap for discussions and presentations at schools.
Sabrina Evans has been Hall’s prayer partner for over 20 years and a close friend who has been with Sisters Journeying Together from the beginning. As a retired principal in Detroit schools, Evans is passionate about ending bullying in schools and helping children see their worth. Evans also has a heart for single parents, who she helps and empowers through her program, Alpha One Cares.
Coupling their passions together, Evans and Hall are striving to raise awareness about these difficult topics by serving on each other’s boards, “So dealing with her traumatic experiences and dealing with a traumatic experience of my own, we thought that there were some young girls and young women who can hear our experiences and tell them that they’re not the only ones dealing with this.”
To learn more about Sisters Journeying Together, visit sistersjourneyingtogether.org, email hello@sistersjourneyingtogether.org or call (248) 648-1733.
