 Over 50 high school student leaders, representing the diverse youth population of California, facilitated the Youth Graduation Empowerment Project (YGEP), with guidance and support from an alliance of youth serving organizations and supervision from the staff of the Center for Multicultural Cooperation (CMC). Partners include the California Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, WestED, California Council for the Social Studies, California Association of Student Councils, Youth Service California, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Cesar E. Chavez Foundation, Alliance for Educational Solutions and the California Council for Civic Participation.
Their Call to Action and YGEP activities led to the service of over 500 middle and high school students in the state to close the Achievement Gap and to contribute valuable research, service and specific policy proposals. Our Youth Leadership Team and partner organizations organized student service-learning and civic engagement activities to address the dropout crisis, to identify the reasons why so many students give up on high school graduation and to develop specific proposals to reduce the Achievement Gap. These are YGEP activities resulting from the generous grant from the State Farm Insurance YAB: - The Youth Leadership Team (from Fresno, Sacramento, Modesto and Oakland) met with adult allies to plan the project in January and February.
- The Youth Leadership Team created a website (ygep.cmcweb.org) with resources for the project and for student opinions and ideas to reduce the Achievement Gap and to improve schools so students will choose not to drop out.
- The project began with a training of 30 youth leaders at the California Service-learning Leadership Institute in Pasadena in February, 2009.
- The YSCal Catalyst Youth Ambassadors selected and CMC provided 5 mini-grants for regional conferences to promote broad participation in the project across California. $2,000 grants were given to Kern County, Los Angeles, Trinity County and Fresno County youth leadership programs and $1,000 to a Santa Clara County youth leadership program.
- The results of the youth-led service-learning projects were presented at regional, state and national conferences, including the Youth Graduation Empowerment Summit in September, 2009. There will be a presentation by the YGEP Youth Leadership Team at the National Service Learning Conference in March, 2010.
- Youth leaders and adult allies presented youth proposals to California Superintendent of Schools, Jack O’Connell, on 12/6/09. There will be a follow-up meeting on 1/15/10
- Youth leaders from the Center for Multicultural Cooperation produced a mini-documentary video about the project, to be shown at events and posted on websites as a podcast.
Youth leaders and adult allies will evaluate how to build this campaign and engage more students in service-learning and responsible civic participation, including presentation of youth proposals to local and state policymakers. This project has led to an ongoing process of youth civic engagement to promote more opportunities for service learning in California.
To learn more about YGEP check out their blog! |
