Selena Gomez Returns to School as a Mentor to Young Girls

Selena Gomez went back to school. This time, though, as a mentor. The actress celebrated World Kindness Day with Coach and a group of high school students in an effort to empower young women from underserved communities. Alongside Step Up (one of Coach’s national charity partners) and chief executive Victor Luis, Gomez attended events at two Los Angeles high schools to offer herself up as a mentor.

Gomez took to her much-followed Instagram to post a candid photo from the experience, captioning it “@instagram is celebrating world kindness day and I got to spend it with people who fully will change our world one day. @coach introduced me to @stepupwomensnetwork which is an after-school organization that encourages girls to believe that they have the capability to do anything they set their mind to. It’s crazy to me how much they are willing put others before themselves.”

Through her work with the brand as celebrity brand ambassador, Gomez does much more than just wear sheer dresses to leather jackets from the recently revitalized label, which got a CFDA nomination on Thursday for Stuart Vevers’ accessories work. In fact, she is deeply involved with the Coach Foundation, which the brand describes as a philanthropic initiative that has “to date granted more than $40 million to charities supporting women’s health, education for children in underserved communities, public parks and cultural programs in New York City, and disaster relief around the world.”

In addition to her charity work with the brand, Selena will be designing a yet-to-be-released piece for Coach’s fall 2017 collection.

“I am truly thrilled to be involved with Coach and their support of Step Up,” said Gomez in a statement. “Step Up’s mission to empower young women is personally important to me and something even more crucial in under-served communities. Working with the young women I met today was an inspirational experience I will never forget.”

It is a cause that is close to her heart, as her newest Netflix project, entitled Thirteen Reasons Why, is focused on the bullying young girls face. The singer has also recently re-entered the spotlight after taking a social media and public hiatus due to mental health issues.

She recently opened up to Vogue about it, saying, “I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage.”

As a result, she began a 90-day program that involved both individual as well as group therapy, explaining, “You have no idea how incredible it felt to just be with six girls. Real people who couldn’t give two s—s about who I was, who were fighting for their lives. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was the best thing I’ve done.”

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Behind the Scenes of Selena Gomez’s W Magazine Cover Shoot: