Today on Stateside, we turned the microphones over to Katie Byrd, Taylor Williams, and Nadia Davis, three seniors from Belleville High School.

They’re participants in the Gender Consciousness Project, a women’s empowerment group for high schoolers in the greater Detroit area.

Nesha Haniff, a lecturer with the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, started the project in 2016, and has since brought it to four high schools.

Byrd, Williams, and Davis co-founded and now lead the group at their school.

“We talk about injustices that we all face as women, as women of color, first generation college students, daughters of single mothers,” Davis said. “We create a safe space for us to talk about these struggles, and not only talk about them, but to figure out how we’re going to get past them.”

Listen to their interview here.