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Believe Circle City charter school students study Hoosier women on tour

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Students from Believe Circle City school on Friday got an up-close lesson about Indiana women.

The group toured the city, stopping by monuments and locations highlighting women and their work.

The charter school has a focus on colleges and careers. School representatives said this trip was an extra way to help students build identity, but also remind youths that no matter your background, the sky is the limit.

“Believe” is in the Believe Circle City high school name for a reason. The school’s founder, Kimberly Neal-Brannum, said, “We chose that name because so many of our students have lost hope. We know that this generation has experienced so much darkness.”

The school opened a year ago on Ivy Tech Community College’s near-northside campus. The school focuses on setting students up for college and careers, getting them where they need to be to realize their passions. Neal-Brannum says the school staff members have a goal to help do that on a daily basis, and they took Friday’s lesson outside the classrooms.

“And it is important to understand especially for our ladies to have positive images around them. I can understand that there is no ceiling for them the sky is the limit,” Neal-Brannum said.

Traveling by IndyGo bus, students visited locations and monuments highlighting Hoosier women who’ve left a mark. The students broke off into groups to visit landmarks including Lady Victory on top the Soldiers & Sailors Monument on downtown’s Monument Circle. The also saw a mural of artist and poet Mauri Evans, the woman-designed Lady Spray Fountain in the Fountain Square neighborhood, and the Madam Walker Legacy Center.

“When I think about this was a Black woman that started this, when you look at the beauty in the building and how as well-preserved,” said student Elazia Davidson.

For many of these students, Friday was the first time they’d heard of the women or the monuments. They say seeing them around the city was motivation of what the future could hold for them. “One day, it could be one of us making a name for ourselves with the building,” said student Kamya Atwater.

Believing that it’s actually possible is what the lesson was all about.