Dr Maxine Ruddock
Sisters of the Spirit (SOS) was founded by Dr Maxine Ruddock a licensed psychologist. Dr Ruddock came to value and respect the unique support provided by black women after experiencing challenging interpersonal experiences and subsequent support from her two best friends. Dr Ruddock has always had a passion for black women’s issues focused a significant amount of her work on helping black women realize their created potential. Through her work with black women Dr Ruddock observed a disturbing trend of black women developing competitive and conflictual relationships with each other instead of supportive and nurturing ones. In addition, many of these black women shared stories of betrayal by other black women and expressed their intention to maintain an emotionally safe distance from female friendships. Unfortunately, they had decided to avoid one of the most important relationships of their lives.
Dr. Ruddock also noticed that many black women business owners practiced in isolation and lacked the knowledge, resources, professional and personal support needed to grow their businesses to the level they envisioned. Unfortunately, even those black women who were part of business support groups found them to be impersonal and lacking in the close intimate support that these black women craved.
To that end Dr Ruddock focused on developing a relationship-based approach to educate, empower and support black women to become economically self-sufficient and prosperous through entrepreneurship, while simultaneously assisting them to maintain spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically balanced lives.Sisters Of the Spirit is fully committed to increasing black women’s awareness of the need to nurture and support each other both personally and professionally. As such members assist each other to identify and advance business goals by addressing mutual concerns, exchanging ideas and resources, sharing successes and failures, and providing moral and emotional support. All of this is done in an atmosphere of warmth and camaraderie that supports professional development and promotes lasting friendships.
