Introducing the Youth Action Scholars!

This summer marked the launch of a new level in the UCCP’s youth leadership continuum. Emphasizing the importance of both education and action, UCCP's new group called Youth Action Scholars provides an opportunity for successful VOICES after school and POWER Internship graduates to step up their leadership and commitment by working on a long term campaign to transform the world around them. This summer, 16 students ages 15-18 were selected into the program after going through a rigorous application and interview process in June. After being accepted as a potential Action Scholar, each young person had a chance to select the issue they wanted to focus on for their campaign. Forming 3 groups with 5-6 action scholars each, the youth and their Leaders Corps facilitators took on an ambitious summer educating themselves on the problems and root causes of their issues and setting a strategy for change. In the process, they met with relevant community organizations and nonprofits, developed organizing skills and created a long term action plan to reach the goals for their social change campaigns. In the upcoming year, the Scholars will meet once a week to continue working on their campaigns and organizing events around their issues.

The curriculum and structure for YAS was developed collectively by Alie Huxta, UCCP’s AmeriCorps VISTA and POWER Internship coordinator with UCCP’s Leaders Corps facilitators Dave Cruz, Ma’at ForBaba and Aaron Phil Scott.

MEET THE TEAMS:

Policial Youth Team (PYT) is committed to informing and educating young people in the community on the political issues that directly affect their lives, while also motivating them to critically analyze those issues. They plan to provide workshops and resources to those who want to make a change in their community. As a PYT would say, "We will go beyond the Veil of our everyday lives to show that Politics Is In Everything.”

Race, Culture and Mass Media (RCMM) - The youth in RCMM spent the summer researching and learning about the image of African Americans in media, and how African American history has been skewed by mass media and public schools. Their goal is to educate Philly youth on the history of their race and culture by creating a class curriculum relevant to the students’ culture and experience. To bring these goals into action they will host workshops about the importance of African American history, and also urge the Philadelphia School District to adopt a more multicultural curriculum based on the race and culture of its students.

Health 5 Dimensions (H5D)- After a year of successful Teen Health Cafes with The Net, a group of 6 youth expanded on this idea and morphed into a new group called H5D. This group will be educating others on a holistic approach to health that includes five dimensions: emotional, spiritual, social, physical, and intellectual. This year they aim to put on eight workshops advocating for this approach, and their long term goal is to start a healthy food stand in a low-income neighborhood in Philadelphia, because for H5D, “Every Community is a Healthy Community.”