{"id":947534,"date":"2026-07-20T13:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/947534\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T13:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:50:17","slug":"young-girls-learn-self-defense-at-philly-parks-and-rec-pilot-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/947534\/","title":{"rendered":"Young girls learn self-defense at Philly Parks and Rec pilot program"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014Philadelphia Parks and Recreation is offering a new program this summer: a self-defense class just for girls.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Five girls between the ages of 10 and 15 sat in a circle outside the 12th and Cambria rec center, discussing what makes someone strong \u2014 muscles? Or mental qualities \u2014 like trying something new even if you won\u2019t be perfect at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not afraid of making mistakes, but you can also learn from your mistakes,\u201d one girl said.<\/p>\n

It was the first session of a six-week pilot program, called Safe-Her<\/a>, a self-defense class specifically for girls.<\/p>\n

Program manager Valerie Arhondakis said Parks and Rec wanted to improve safety while instilling confidence and empowerment.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo teach them skills, life skills, but specifically for being able to protect themselves from things that could harm them in society today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

They are learning situational awareness, de-escalation and physical techniques for getting out of danger, but coach Chris Burns said it\u2019s all mental first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you believe in yourself, you can do anything, whether it\u2019s work or self-defense, so you gotta get the mind straight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Burns is leading the program at four rec centers throughout the city and hopes to expand next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can change one person\u2019s life, it makes the whole program successful,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014Philadelphia Parks and Recreation is offering a new program this summer: a self-defense class just…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":947535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,381542,10178,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-947534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-parks-and-recreation","tag-self-defense","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116952631187961481","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}