youthLEAD is an urban youth mentoring program for school-based service-learning. The goal is for urban youth to work alongside community partners, teachers, college students, and other urban youth in designing and implementing service-learning projects. LEAD stands for Learn, Engage, Act, and Decide. K-12 urban youth and college students come together as equal partners in mentoring relationships. Urban youth benefit from a sense of connectedness through an increase in positive activity in and out of school while also decreasing the incidents of destructive personal behaviors (Cornell study, 2003; Swaminathan, 2005; Youniss & Yates, 1999). College students benefit from service-learning opportunities through increased citizenship development, perspective transformation and a reduction in stereotyping/increased tolerance (Eyler & Giles, 1999).
Elements of youthLEAD:
• Learn: All service is grounded in school-based academic learning.
• Engage: Youth are engaged as problem-solvers and capacity builders in meaningful service opportunities that meet community-identified needs.
• Act: Youth act from a sense of civic and social responsibility that is grounded in explored values and principles.
• Decide: Youth are the designers and the decision-makers in the process of strengthening their communities.
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One organization at a time . . .
At Cincinnati's city zoo, University of Cincinnati students and their buddies have become ZooMates in an effort to find ways to help animals living in captivity and enhance the zoo's programming for children. Students and youth come together through Project Connect, an organization for homeless and transitional children attending Cincinnati Public Schools. The ZooMates meet monthly and brainstorm together about how to design and implement new projects to challenge our thinking about the conservation and care of the planet's wild animals.
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One home at a time . . .
At the United Methodist Children's Home, college students and youth are readying the landscape for a new sustainable garden. Project S.E.E.D. (Students Engaged in Environmental Development) is based on the premise that in order to help youth look into the future we need to grow something with them. Otterbein students are working with the youth residents of the children's home to design, plant, and sustain a vegetable garden on the homesite. The youth are responsible for maintaining the garden, marketing the produce locally, and deciding how best to use the profits to address hunger issues in Columbus.
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One child at a time . . .
The Ubuntu program at Otterbein College recognizes the value of near peer mentoring through a multi-tiered initiative in partnership with Columbus Public Schools. Otterbein students enrolled in a service-learning mentoring course teach mentoring skills to High School students, who in turn mentor and teach skills to three middle school College Clubs, who mentor 6th grade service clubs in their respective schools. This mentoring stream enriches the connections all the youth have in their schools and communities and provides an ideal space to develop the civic skills necessary to impact their own neighborhoods in deeper, more meaningful ways. This year, through a scholarship chain program and a public readers theater initiative, over 100 urban youth will participate in service-learning activities.
youthLEAD Programs (.pdf)
