My World With Peace

With the help of mini-grant funding from Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition under the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia initiative, the University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia sought to strengthen the existing relationship between the UCCP’s Temple Youth VOICES Project and the Skills for Life (SFL) Program at the Vare Beacon center in South Philadelphia. A total of 18 students between the ages of 14 and 18 in grades 9- 12 participated in the project. Their hope was to create a local campaign for peace that put youth as the centerpiece of violence reduction efforts.

This was an opportunity for the high school students in the SFL program to gain hands-on workshop planning, development and facilitation skills while sharing knowledge with younger children. Over the course of eight sessions, for two hours every Wednesday beginning April 8, 2009 until May 27, 2009 the students researched activities and prepared icebreakers and discussion questions to engage other youth around violence, peer influence and assertive communication. These activities were planned for the culminating all-day Saturday workshop to follow.

The Youth Leaders for Peace Conference (YLPC) took place on Saturday May 30, 2009 at Temple University. Twenty-eight (28) youth between the ages of 8-12 accompanied by 5 adults participated from the community surrounding E.H. Vare Middle School in South Philadelphia. The conference activities included a sharing circle, interactive problem-solving simulations, an art activity to help us envision a world with peace and reflection journaling.

On June 18th the UCCP staff hosted a Community Recognition Dinner to honor both the SFL and conference participants and their families. Everyone received a completion certificates and many shared excerpts from their reflection papers. One Skills for Life Instructors commented that she “could not miss the opportunity to see her kids get recognized for something so great.”

Youth Leadership Workshops

During the months of May and June the UCCP provided trainings for youth workers through United Way’s Community Impact Training Institute. The trainings covered the topics of "Youth Leadership", "Forming Youth Councils and Youth Advisory Boards" and "Youth, Media and Identity". The workshops were facilitated by UCCP's Assistant Director Catalina Gonzalez, Media Coordinator Natalia Smirnov and Leaders Corps members Gary Browne, Malikka Saeed, Dominic Eason, Earl Joseph and Victoria Holmes.

UCCP offers a variety of workshops around issues of urban youth perceptions and challenges, youth leadership development, youth-adult collaboration, social change education and media literacy and production. To bring a UCCP workshop to your school or organization, please contact Catalina Gonzalez at catalina.gonzalez@temple.edu.

Educate. Reform/Reflect.

Its official! June 3rd the POWER interns wrapped up the Spring 2009 POWER Internship with two OUTSTANDING events.

As part of their social change project at the POWER internship, high school juniors and seniors planned, organized and facilitated workshops on community issues of their choice.

The "Why Youth Homelessness?" event held at St. John's Hospice and Shelter was a great success. The interns presented a PSA on youth homelessness that they shot and edited to the staff and the men staying at the shelter. Following the PSA, the interns led a discussion about the invisibility of youth homelessness compared to the homelessness of adults. The staff and residents were very receptive and had lots of great questions. One of our interns, who is a homeless youth, gave a testimony and told her story about her life and what it is like to be homeless at such a young age. Overall the staff and residents were wowed by the interns' PSA and message about youth homelessness and all the interns did a a great job facilitating their activities and dialogue.

The "Can You Hear Us?" event held at Temple University with the Caring People's Alliance parenting group, from R.W. Brown community center, was also a success. The interns prepared a workshop for parents and teens to understand the importance of communication, and suggested strategies to build a healthy, communicative relationship. The interns led original activities such as Trading Places, in which the parents played the child and the child played the parent. They acted out scenarios and both parties had a chance to experience the others' perspective. The parents were reminded about how powerless a child can feel and the students realized what a huge responsibility raising a child is. The interns received several requests from the parents to come out to other community centers and facilitate the same workshop for other parents! The facilitation and leadership in this workshop was phenomenal and each intern really stepped up and felt they impacted the lives of the workshop participants.

Congratulations Spring 2009 POWER Interns! The UCCP is delighted to welcome several of the POWER graduates to our summer Leadership Development Institute to receive training as future Action Scholars and Leaders Corps members: Janay Eleazer (Sp 2008), Christiana Sanders (Fall 08), Brianna Jenkins (Fall 08), Terrell Merrill (Fall 08), Daniel Nunez (Sp 09), Chalisa Morrison (Sp 09), Roy Fearon (Sp 09), Stafford McCrea (Sp 09), Lyesha Fleming (Sp 09) and Bianca Cruz (Sp 09).