How Darryca Is Protecting Joy for Black and Brown Girls in Chicago
When you listen to Darryca talk about her work, two words keep coming back: joy and safety.
She doesn’t use them lightly.
She grew up on Chicago’s South Side, born on 53rd and Racine, later moving to Fuller Park. Her walk to school meant crossing a viaduct into Canaryville – and into open racism.
She remembers one house on the corner.
Every time she and her cousins walked past on their way to Alexander Graham, the man who lived there would come out and chase them with a gun.
Second, third, fourth, fifth graders.
Already carrying the weight of getting to school. Already navigating neighborhood dynamics. And then adding raw fear just to make it to class.
That house, that walk, that feeling – those are not abstract concepts for her. They’re why she has built her life around making sure other Black and brown girls grow up with something different.
Today, as co-founder and executive director of Focus Fairies, Darryca is creating exactly what she needed back then: safe, playful, emotionally honest spaces for girls ages 7 to 21 across Chicago.
This conversation with host Damien Howard on Village Talks (powered by SELvie) is a window into how she does it.
From Terror on the Walk to School to a True Village
Alongside the fear of that house, there was something else in Darryca’s childhood: a village.
She lights up when she talks about Young Life at Fuller Park.
It was church.
It was fun.
It was structure.
It was possibility.
They got Young Life books filled with trips across all 50 states. She learned how to budget, not from a textbook, but because she wanted to go on all the adventures.
She remembers the park district, park voyages, After School Matters. The park became a safe haven. A place where adults were clearly investing in “the next generation of youth,” as she puts it.
So her story holds a tension:
• Walking past a house that meant terror.
• Walking into programs that meant joy.
Both shaped her.
Both show up in how she builds Focus Fairies today: deeply honest about trauma, fiercely intentional about joy.
What Chicago Girls Are Carrying to School Now
When Damien asks her to connect her own experience to the girls she now mentors, she doesn’t hesitate.
She sees three big patterns.
1. Parentification: “They can’t just be kids”
Her middle school girls – sixth, seventh, and eighth graders – talk about being caregivers.
They’re waking up younger siblings.
They’re helping with homework.
They’re managing morning routines.
By the time they get to school, they’re exhausted.
“They are tired. They’re restless. They are unmotivated,” Darryca says. “They feel as though they don’t have a voice. They feel as though they have to always be responsible.”
She understands it intimately. She helped raise nieces and nephews herself. But she’s clear: something is lost when girls never get to just be girls.
Her work is about giving that childhood back – pockets of joy, rest, and play without the constant burden of responsibility.
2. Vicarious Trauma: Grief in the Background
Not every girl in Focus Fairies has directly witnessed violence. But nearly all of them live inside its ripple effects.
Parents, cousins, classmates getting shot.
Friends killed.
Stories circulating through the classroom, group chats, and family conversations.
Vicarious trauma sits on their shoulders.
Darryca speaks from experience here too. She has lost her best friend, cousin, and brother to gun violence. “And the list goes on and on and on,” she says.
She knows what that has done to her as a 36-year-old adult. So she refuses to minimize what it does to a 7-year-old, a 13-year-old, a 19-year-old.
At Focus Fairies, they build support on purpose:
• Mental health support.
• Play-based support.
• Someone who will simply listen.
Not as a nice-to-have, but as core to how girls survive and thrive.
3. Silenced Voices at Home
The third pattern she notices is quieter, but just as damaging: girls feeling like their feelings don’t matter.
She hears it often:
“I tried to tell my mom she hurt my feelings, and I instantly got blocked down.”
Responses like:
“Girl, you don’t got no feelings.”
“What I say goes.”
Without meaning to, adults are teaching girls that their emotions are invalid, that speaking up is pointless.
“What we don’t understand,” Darryca says, “is what we’re doing now to that child where they feel like they are voiceless.”
Focus Fairies is built as a counter-story: a place where naming your feelings is expected, not punished.
Inside the Focus Fairies Model
Damien doesn’t just want headlines. He asks about the “subtle nuances” of how Focus Fairies actually runs its programs.
Darryca walks through the structure.
Becoming a girl: B-Girl for ages 7–12
The B-Girl program for elementary school girls mirrors a strong classroom lesson plan.
Each session has:
• An opening
• A clear objective
• Core curriculum
• A closeout moment
Facilitators go into school sites and guide girls through themes around emotions, identity, and community in a way that matches where they are developmentally.
The goal: help them become emotionally aware, connected, and grounded early.
Becoming emotionally empowered: B-Girl for 13–16
As girls get older, the work goes deeper.
“B-girl” shifts into “becoming emotionally empowered.”
Now the focus is on:
• Conflict resolution
• Naming and managing emotions
• Setting healthy boundaries
• Understanding healthy vs. unhealthy relationships
The same structure. A more complex conversation.
Becoming leaders: B-Girl Fly for 16–21
Then there’s B-Girl Fly, the leadership and career/workforce development track.
This program often serves girls who started with Focus Fairies around age 12 and are now high school seniors or in college.
Here, the question becomes: What does leadership look like for you?
College.
Apprenticeships.
Entrepreneurship.
Women from Chicago and beyond come in to share their paths. Not as distant role models, but as real people the girls can talk to, ask questions, and see themselves in.
The message is simple and powerful: you can be whatever you desire, and you deserve to see it up close.
A full-circle support system
Beyond the core programs, Focus Fairies has built a wraparound ecosystem:
• A mental health specialist providing individual, group, and family therapy.
• A parent navigator offering caregiver and parent support.
• The WOW Bus – “Wings on Wheels” – a mobile mentoring bus used for pop-up community activations, especially in the summer.
Programming isn’t confined to one building. It moves where girls are, activating joy, support, and connection in their neighborhoods.
Why “Focus Fairies” Matters
The name was intentional.
Back in 2017, as they were starting the organization, there was a big question: what do you call a program that might start with 7-year-olds and grow with them into adulthood?
“Women of Wisdom” came up.
But did that fit a seven-year-old? Probably not.
They needed something:
• Catchy
• Magical
• Innocent
• True to the many evolutions of a girl’s life
So they landed on Focus Fairies.
“A fairy is whimsical. A fairy is magical. It’s creative,” Darryca explains.
It also had to feel like the girls themselves.
The logo is based on Darryca and her co-founder. Even their mascot, Bridget B, shows up in the curriculum as part of the story – another “fairy” guiding the work.
It’s not branding for branding’s sake. It’s an identity that Chicago girls can see, name, and claim as their own.
If She Had a Magic Wand
Toward the end of the conversation, Damien invites Darryca into an imaginative space.
He hands her a “magic wand” and asks a focused question: how would she use it to bring more joy to the girls she serves?
Her answer is grounded and specific.
1. Calm inside the chaos
First, she would create calm within every girl.
To help her feel:
• Less anxious
• Less afraid
• Less worried
“To just skip around and be free, almost as if you have wings,” she says. To enjoy the breath of life and know you are protected, seen, and heard.
2. Playfulness at home and school
Second, she’d transform the spaces where girls spend most of their time.
Rooms with calm corners.
Classrooms with room for play.
Homes where rest is allowed, not earned.
She’s clear: this isn’t just for children. “I need joy in my life as a 36-year-old woman. I need playfulness in my life as a 36-year-old woman.”
If adults need it, our girls certainly do.
3. Real access in their own neighborhoods
Finally, her wand would create access.
Parks in their own communities that have what parks in Barrington or Lincoln Park have.
Grocery stores with fresh, colorful food, not rotten leftovers.
Local healthcare and amenities that signal, without words: you matter, and your neighborhood matters.
That’s her vision of joy: not a feeling that appears out of nowhere, but a product of safety, support, and real resources.
What We Can Learn From Darryca’s Work
You don’t have to run an organization to apply what Darryca models.
Here are a few grounded takeaways:
1. Listen for what kids carry, not just how they act.
A tired, distracted girl might also be a caregiver at home. Ask before you judge.
2. Treat vicarious trauma as real.
Even if a child didn’t “see it happen,” loss and violence in their network still land in their body.
3. Make room for feelings.
When a child tells you their feelings are hurt, resist the urge to shut it down. Practice saying, “Tell me more” instead of “You’re fine.”
4. Protect play.
Build in moments of silliness, games, movement, and rest. For kids and for yourself.
5. Think ecosystem, not just program.
Who else needs support? Parents, caregivers, siblings? How can you connect or coordinate that care?
Darryca’s work shows that mentoring is not just about advice or good intentions. It’s about designing environments where girls can breathe, feel, and grow.
A Final Word From Darryca
As the conversation closes, Damien gives her the floor.
She shares how to get involved – volunteering as a mentor, joining the board, offering thought partnership – and then leaves one simple practice:
“Take a breath. Just breathe. I know things seem uncertain. Things seem chaotic. Things seem crazy, but just breathe and know that we are in this together, even though it may feel isolating. And find little pockets of joy, however that may look for you.”
That’s the heart of her work: shared breath, shared burden, shared joy.
If you’re curious about how organizations are scaling this kind of mentoring and support for young people, learn more at https://www.sel-plus.com/selvieai.