This is part of WTOP’s continuing coverage of people making a difference from our community authored by Stephanie Gaines-Bryant. Read more of that coverage.
At the age of 19, a college student from Maryland found herself pregnant and alone in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was attending Atlanta Clark University.
She returned to Maryland to have her daughter, who was born in 2008. However, the relationship with her mother, a single mother, was difficult, says Kamille Bundy, founder and CEO of D.C.-based Young Mothers, Inc.
Bundy said she was put out of her home and left without the proper resources or emotional support she needed to become self-sufficient. She found herself in an abusive relationship.
When Bundy reached what she calls “a place of balance” several years later, she decided she wanted to help other women who were going through the same challenges that she had gone through. Women who had the same family strain and the same lack of understanding when it came to healthy relationships.
She reached that place, she says, by taking the time to figure out what she wanted to do with her life, and she realized how much of a passion she had for helping others. Bundy founded, D.C.-based Young Mothers, Inc. in 2011. She said another reason she began the organization was for her children.
Bundy now has a daughter and a son. She says she wanted to show them, “Even though you go through struggles in life, that doesn’t define you as a person.”
She says the organization began its mission by going into local women’s shelters in the District to provide emotional support. Most organizations in D.C. don’t have programs specifically tailored to meet the emotional needs of young mothers, according to Bundy.
“We’re unique in the fact that we want to make sure that the moms have a platform so that they can feel comfortable talking about themselves.” Their new initiative is the “Just Listen” program.
Bundy says, “It provides women a safe haven to share their stories, to feel confident, and to be around like-minded women.”
The organization is located at 2001 L Street, Northwest, D.C.
To learn more about the Just Listen program and other available programs, visit the Young Mothers, Inc. website or call 202-503-9134.
