WATERVILLE – Hardy Girls Healthy Women, in partnership with the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville Main Street Program,

Freshwater Arts and Wisconsin-based Project Girl, is hosting a series of workshops on art, media and critical thinking this winter.

Titled “Media Makeover: Changing the Face of Art,” the workshop series will culminate in Hardy Girl’s 10th annual Girls Unlimited Conference! on April 5.

The conference, as well as the weekend workshops, will be held in downtown Waterville.

Hardy Girls Healthy Women and their collaborators will work with high school age girls to increase their awareness of the negative daily messages they get from the media, while encouraging the critical thinking skills necessary for girls to identify and combat harmful messages about how girls are supposed to look, act and feel. The girls will then co-teach workshops at the Girls Unlimited! Conference in April.

“Girls today are bombarded with images and messages from the media that tell girls they need to look, act and be a certain way. Meanwhile, girls are rarely given the skills to deconstruct these messages or the opportunities to create their own media.

The dangerous results of this translate for girls into eating disorders, self-hatred, depression, cutting and feelings of low self-worth and disempowerment. That’s the void this project will fill,” said Hardy Girls Executive Director Megan Williams.

Girls Advisory Board member Alyssa Matthews, 18, has participated in the Girls Unlimited Conference for a number of years as a volunteer and this year as part of the planning committee.

“The conference is great because the girls experience things they wouldn’t get to experience in other places. They may think they can’t do something, but this conference gives them a perspective on life and on the opportunities they have as a woman that they might not otherwise experience,” she said.

Each spring Hardy Girls Healthy Women holds the Girls Unlimited! Conference and invites girls in grades five to eight to spend a day broadening their horizons.

The day offers workshops and activities to challenge participants, expand their horizons and introduce them to female artists who are making money and changing the landscape of art.

The weekend workshops are free. For more information, go to www.hghw.org.