What's up with the Youth Initiative?  Take a look at what is going on with our projects across Windham County.

Windham County Wide:
The Youth Initiative's web site, www.HelpEmpowerYouth.com , continues to be a great resource for families, teens and professionals around Windham County to find activities and resources for young people.

A printed resource guide has also been created and will be distributed through schools and other partner organizations in January 2006.

WCYC (Windham County Youth Council) has 15 members that represent middle and high schools around the county.  This group is planning another Youth Summit to be held in the Spring of 2006.

The H.E.Y.! Help Empower Youth campaign continues with monthly news articles giving practical information about how community members can better support young people.

We also have fabulous new bumper stickers that are being distributed in a variety of ways.

Windham Central: 
Susan Gunther-Mohr is the H.E.Y.! Activities Coordinator at Leland and Gray Middle/High School.  Since the middle of September she has been reaching out to students that are not currently involved in activities and develop programming to meet those students interests.  Four programs have run successfully thus far reaching 32 students (49% of the target population).  These programs include computer strategy games, hip hop dance, garage bands and Yugioh.  Activities in the works include chess, a writing group, photography and Dungeons and Dragons.

Windham Southwest:
An outreach position is being supported through Wings Community Program and Twin Valley Middle School to connect with 4th graders who are not bonded to the school to engage them in their learning and in after school activities.  The outreach coordinator should be hired this month. 

Windham Northeast:
A community effort is underway to create a Boys & Girls Club unit and the Youth Initiative is supporting the effort in any way it can.  The Youth Initiative is also funding two Peer Outreach Workers through Youth Services to reach out to teens providing resource and activity information as well as support services.  Recruitment of these Peer Outreach Workers is underway.  A training will be held in January or February 2006.

Windham Southeast:
The Youth Initiative is helping to support the Boys & Girls Club @ BAMS after school program, now called Links, which is in its second year.  The program is currently serving about 30 students with new students joining each week.

Networking Meetings

    The Youth Initiative hosted networking meetings around Windham County in November 2005 for organizations providing programming for young people in the out of school time hours. Organizations that participated found these meetings to be beneficial in making collaborative connections and learning more about the Youth Initiative. 
    “I made some great connections for future projects so thank you for pulling us together,” said Kate Bailey, Education and Outreach Coordinator for the Brattleboro Coop.  
    These meetings also provided programs with an opportunity for organizations to talk about the challenge they face in their work.  The challenges mentioned most were transportation, recruiting more youth from diverse backgrounds, sustaining funding and recruiting and managing volunteers.  The Youth Initiative is looking into ways of helping support organizations with these challenges. 
    Lastly, these networking meetings served as a way for the Youth Initiative to ask organizations to assist in collecting data on new participants in their programs.  This information will help the Youth Initiative evaluate its efforts to connect more youth to out of school time activities.  I will be contacting all organizations that were unable to attend these meetings to talk more about this

Youth Initiated Grants

Have an idea for a project that will help your community? 
Need some money to make it happen? 

Young people with project ideas are invited to submit grant proposals to Youth Initiated Grants by December 20th, 2005.   The Request for Proposals can be found on www.HelpEmpowerYouth.com .

Projects must address at least one of the following concerns:
    1. More places to hang out; improving the places where young                             people hang out now.
    2. Broadening the spectrum of meaningful activities and                              community service opportunities offered to youth.
    3. Youth voice in decision making in schools and the community.
    4.  Creation of jobs for youth.
    5.  Cultural ignorance – no more “isms” and phobias.
    6.  Transportation to and from activities and jobs.
    7. Developing positive relationships with authority figures                          (examples include the police, school administration,                             teachers).
    8. Positive peer influence.
    9. Improving the educational system to include everyone and                           accept different learning styles.
    10. Youth and adults working together as partners -  resulting in                       improved relations.

Need Art Supplies?

The C&S Print Shop would like to donate blank booklets and tissue paper that could be used for crafts to a non-profit working with youth.  Please let me know if you are interested in these supplies.