Youth Leadership

Each year in our CHW Learning Centers we engage our young emerging leaders.  Every fall our Community Building Coordinators recruit middle and high school students to become Leaders in our Learning Centers.  Job training is built into our program because we ask students fill out an application and complete an interview before they’re “hired” as leaders.  Their job for the next year is to assist the coordinator, help younger students with homework and complete a community project.

Leaders attend two training summits in the spring.  The training summits cover many leadership topics and issues as well as team building.  Teams of leaders are formed based on their proximity in the county.  The teams then brainstorm ways they’d like to impact their community and they develop a project plan.  Small grants are given to teams that raise matching funds and the leaders set out to put their plan into action.

In 2010 our leaders attended summits hosted by UCSD and Mira Costa College.  Our 5 teams of students created projects that impacted the community by helping the homeless, supporting school transportation, creating neighborhood programs and preventing gang involvement.

 

Each year, CHW awards the VALOR scholarship to Volunteers and Junior Leaders who have achieved academic success and who have demonstrated community leadership, an Opportunity and Reward to help pay for higher education.  For more information and how to support this program, click here.