Thank you NABJ for recognizing my reporting on the people of my community. I work so others know their stories and voices are relevant, their ideas and contributions are powerful and their pain is real. Elaine Houston, reporter WNYT, Albany, NY
OUR STORY
I was a reporter who'd taken a new job at a television station when I felt the sting of corporate America doing what it does so often with women of color and that is try and marginalize me. It started very early; during probation that they began to insinuate I wasn't good enough. While that was management's belief, it wasn't mine. I knew I had the education, experience, solid reporting skills, the ability to project my voice in a professional public speaking manner and I knew how to be personable while giving the news.
However, I had to work harder than I'd ever worked in my life to fight against the box that my bosses put me in through their implicit bias.
It was because of that I decided that I had to tell the stories of women. I had to present a new perspective about women of color. I did that through my first book, THE FRIENDSHIPS BETWEEN WOMEN. It's a book of letters from women to women on perseverance. I next traveled to Africa and spoke to women in three countries on the challenges they faced and produced the documentary, TOUCH A WOMAN, TOUCH A ROCK. I returned home and started a new television series for women called TODAY'S WOMEN. All of these projects led me to start this website, www.SHEspeaks2me.com where I do stories on women of color from around the world. In 2017, I began holding an annual summit for women to help them transform themselves in the person God created them to be. That is what got us here, but what keeps us going is seeing women succeed. Elaine Houston
She helps transform women
She's a Diva
She is a survivor
She's an activist for the people!
2021 brings us more ways to talk about issues important to women. Welcome to my 'New' podcast for women!
2020 BROUGHT US CHANGE; BUT WE ROLLED WITH IT!
Covid 19- has impacted us all in so many ways. But, not to worry, our annual women's summit hasn't gone away! It's gone online with ZOOM. Join in our monthly talks and learn and laugh!
More Zoom Videos.
A Soda and a Conversation.....
Elaine sits down with artists whose work makes us all a little happier. Rochelle Porter and Jena Holliday started doodling when they were little kids but thought that's what all kids did. That was until they grew up and it became something they could not ignore. Today those doodles have turned into artwork that can be found on calendars, clothing, T-shirts exercise wear and most recently day planners. The planners are a collaboration with The Happy Planner which partnered with the artists to create limited edition covers. Find their work at the links below.
Stories on women that inspire...

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
By Elaine Houston
According to Shay Levister, a lot. She believes there’s someone out there for all of us and having a relationship is better for you than not having one. That is if that relationship is a healthy one. She calls herself “Your Love Diva’ and believes helping women find the right man is her ministry. “I help women get out of abusive relationships. Women would contact me and tell me I was beaten by my husband and I’m sleeping on the floor, she says”.

Her past relationships give her the real world experience to take on such a daunting task. She says her first real relationship ended with her having a child and being left homeless and her first marriage was one more of convenience than of love. That relationship also included a big home and another child and lots of lies she says. It all fell apart and she had to look within to try and figure out why she was constantly in horrible relationships.

So she started dating more. “I went on 100 dates", she said. She did it for research through online dating. She kept notes and asked lots of questions of the men. She got to see patterns and says she eventually began to quickly figure out the men dating to find a serious relationship and those just out to have a good time. With the information she then wrote a book, ‘Diva Don’t Get Played’. She started coaching women and helping them find the love.
But, she was still making mistakes in her own relationships. “A married man came after the book”, she says. She says he was so manipulative and such a good liar that she married him without realizing he was already married. She knew she was now in trouble. So, she stopped examining the men and started examining herself and she discovered unconsciously that she was sabotaging herself. ‘I grew up in an abusive home where my father abused my mother and my grandmother was abused too.” She says carrying around that abuse did a number on her by making her downplay the way she was treated by men and giving her the wrong definition of what love really is. “It’s not enough to have knowledge because your subconscious mind is still working on you”, she says. She says that by refusing to date until she could heal helped her to get to know who she was. It taught her that a man couldn't make her whole and that she needed to be whole before she met a man so she could be with the right person who loved and supported her.

There are so many women she says who don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like but she finally does. She married again to a husband she says who loves her and her children and she now uses what she happened to her to help other women, holding nothing back. ‘’I had a 50,000 dollar wedding with a married man and this is now a gift and God is able to channel through”, she says.

For more information:
FB and IG: @shayyourlovediva
YouTube: @lovein30days
Latest Interview: https://www.boston25news.com/news/not-just-dating-sites-opportunities-abound-online-dating/YPLAYU2CVOPSSX4IBBQ3OSEEPQ/?_website=cmg-tv-10020



courtesy: Ron Hill photography
Her "OWN' THING