OUR FOUNDER
TAKIYAH
DANIELS
RN BSN CCM
At nineteen years of age Takiyah found herself self a single mother of two and by the time she was thirty-five, a divorced single mother of four. She always knew she wanted to become a nurse but did not know how to organize the demands of young single parent life to attain her goal. With welfare only giving her $123 a month, no transportation, and limited babysitting she had to figure something out. She had to work to support her children. This was difficult because she had no transportation to get to work or school outside of the rural area where she lived, there was no public transportation. Also, day care centers that would accept the childcare assistance she needed to be able to attend work or school was limited. Takiyah had no idea how to go about finding resources to support her desire for higher education that would support her need for a decent paying job. With her basic skillset she was forced to work minimum paying jobs and shuffle her kids to whomever could babysit until her childcare assistance was approved.
She needed to find a job she could work during the hours in which her children could attend daycare. But this was a challenge, as it was difficult to find a Monday-Friday 8am-5pm job with a minimum skillset. This all caused her much mental and physical distress and imbalance. But Takiyah did not give up. She never lost her motivation to be in the medical field. She eventually obtained a medical assistant diploma. But she was again faced with difficulty finding a job because she lacked certification or registration. She needed hours of experience to be able to sit for the examination and she needed funding to pay for the exam. She eventually started working three days a week as a substitute teacher and overnight in a convenience store on weekends to be able to obtain an associate degree in early childhood education. Takiyah worked as a head start teacher in Orleans Parish and later was able to attend nursing school. It took 17 years, but she was able to obtain an associate degree in registered nursing when her oldest child was a high school senior. Her older kids had to help babysit her younger kids while she worked twelve-hour shifts. When her second child graduated from high school, Takiyah was able to go back to school and obtain her bachelor’s degree in nursing. Along Takiyah’s life journey she encountered many single mothers like herself, who had dreams of higher education as a conduit to better paying jobs that would allow them to support their families. These women suffered enormous amounts of stress which led to lack of physical and mental wellness due to always being the provider and caregivers of others which caused them to neglect themselves (This is what single mothers do). Takiyah came to realize how much sooner she could and would have reached her own education and career goals as well as physical and mental wellness if she had just had knowledge, resources, and the support of woman like herself to give her insight on a life plan and balancing it all. This inspired Takiyah to create Woman Like Me (WLM). This way she could connect with and knowledge share with woman who have similar lived experiences.
Also, during her career journey Takiyah worked as a junior and senior high school educator. In that time, she saw firsthand young ladies who did not accept the way they looked and made unguided decisions sharing images of themselves that they did not realize had the potential to have a negative impact on their lives in that moment and in the future. In those young ladies, Takiyah saw her own daughters Jadian and Madison. It was at that time Takiyah realized that Girl Like Me would be a great way to teach young ladies about positive body imaging and making thoughtful choices that could positively impact their potential for greatness.
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Takiyah’s vision for Woman Like Me and Girl Like Me to show single mothers and young ladies that there are woman out there who are just like them, that have reached a level of self-acceptance and success that makes them happy and beautiful inside and out, and that can happen for them too.