WORLD YOUTH FOUNDATION INC
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Mission Statement
Empower every youth to win in life against all odds”. We achieve our mission by educating, empowering, and exposing our youth to advanced opportunities that are not readily available within their schools, homes, or communities. In turn, our youth pay it forward by empowering their own families and communities with the new knowledge and skills acquired in the WYF program, creating a sustainable path to help close the education and wealth gap. For 33 years, WYF has delivered zero cost in and out-of school programs to help learners unlock their greatest gifts and competitive advantage, including cultivating good physical & mental health, character & integrity, durable (soft skills), communication skills, analytical abilities, and digital mastery. We partner collaboratively with business, technology, and industry experts to deliver hands-on learning experiences including human-led design thinking, 3D-game development, robotics, AI and machine learning design, and other emerging industry and technology experiences that enable WYF learners to acquire progressive skills in a rapidly advancing economy. Our Vision Our vision is to see every youth succeed and thrive in our advancing digital economy regardless of their ethnicity, gender identity, or socioeconomic background. WYF envisions a world in which all young people will have equitable pathways to opportunities that will lead to meaningful, high-paying careers, especially youth who have been left out of economic opportunities due to systemic inequities. Through a strong partner ecosystem, WYF programs have been highly successful in accelerating the path of K-16 students across many communities, extending hands-on learning & development opportunities beyond the classroom. By engaging in experiential, content-rich explorations, our WYF learners can dive deeper into the programming and gain a richer understanding of the world around them. Our core focus is to enhance their literacy, numeracy, and the critical thinking skills needed to successfully prepare them for next-generation workforce and/or entrepreneurial mastery, responsible citizenship, and lifelong success. Since 1990, the World Youth Foundation has served more than 70,000 youth in our out-of-school learning, skills development, and mentoring programs. Here are the highlights from three decades of impactful outcomes delivered to communities across the nation…and around the world.
About This Cause
The World Youth Foundation has been delivering free out-of-school mentoring programs for 35 years that focus on increasing self-confidence and accelerating educational & professional skills for all youth. These groups are usually underrepresented in the field of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM). The World Youth Foundation students represent a diverse range of educational and cultural backgrounds. They are between the ages of 6 and 24, and work closely with professionals who possess a breadth of knowledge in business, education, community, and industry. The intellectual energy & expertise of the speakers play more of an interactive role that helps the kids “LEARN + BUILD + INNOVATE. Areas of focus include STEM, manufacturing, transportation, entrepreneurship, and other sectors. Students engage in highly productive and intellectually stimulating hands-on projects that foster innovation, personal empowerment, self-efficacy, interpersonal development, and 21st Century workforce skills. Because of the importance of health and wellness to work and life balance, each mentoring session begins with exercises and workouts for the body, mind and inner-self. We understand that today’s youth must be prepared for a highly competitive economy. Understanding this reality, our organization focuses on the “whole child”, which means not simply putting the focus on education and testing, but building a solid foundation of literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking skills to prepare them for career and job readiness, responsible citizenship and lifelong learning. The uniqueness of our organization is the provision of real world project experiences that enrich leadership skills and accelerate job and career readiness. By applying Project-based learning, we help our students realize their capabilities by exploring their interests and promoting self-confidence by encouraging further research and out of the box thinking that may lead to new career options and/or entrepreneurship. These strategies help our students focus on leading with their competitive advantage, which includes their soft skills, communication abilities, character, analytical skills, priority management, and adaptability to ever-changing business needs & requirements. Our student-centered mentoring program affirms college as an expectation and extends resources to the participants. Referenced in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2011, “One of the most fundamental obligations of society is to prepare young adults for a successful transition to a productive and prosperous adulthood”. In the past, it was considered, “good enough” for companies to simply provide internships for students or to create employee volunteer opportunities with various nonprofits communities. This is no longer the case. In today’s competitive economy, the stakes are high. Business and City leaders must find new and creative ways to deliver real-life, hands-on learning experiences to young people by partnering with youth development organizations and school and educational institutions. We believe in a new – minimum standard. The ways in which corporations, city leaders, non-profit organizations, and other civic communities engage today’s youth require more innovative, diverse, and collaborative techniques. It is our belief that multiple pathways will develop to inspire the next generation to succeed. Corporate philanthropy, investments, and support in youth development and mentoring organizations have a greater need today than any other time in our history. The challenges of being a responsible, effective citizen are more diverse, nuanced, and complex than in the past. Sustaining our communities, strengthening community economics, and meeting national and global challenges, demands a broader vision of social responsibility for the 21st century. Our youth mentoring and leadership development program will continue to scale to meet the ever-changing demands. A recent survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project (Hitlin & Rainie, 2008) found roughly 21 million youth between the ages of 12 and 17, (approximately 87 percent of the entire age bracket) use the Internet. The survey also found that most teens believe that the Internet helps them do better in school (86 percent of teens, 88 percent of online teens). These high percentages are due to a generation of young people who place a substantial investment in technology for their educational resources and as a standard practice, use social media on a daily basis. As our teens continue to adapt to wide-range technology such as Facebook, Friendster, Twitter, YouTube, SmartPhones, and other digital tools, WYF has strategically aligned its programs to intersect with the trends in technology. We approach technology both as a set of skills to be mastered and as a powerful tool to be used in everyday activities such as doing homework, communicating with friends, and researching interests. WYF understands that the best curriculum frameworks embrace both perspectives. WYF has partnered with local high-tech companies such as Comp-U-Dot, TechStreet Houston, Rice University School of Engineering, ArkaTech, First Genesis, and others; as well as developed strategic relationships with employees from technology corporations such as Microsoft and Dell to deliver a range of technology-supported programs ranging from entrepreneur training to service learning (e.g., using publishing software to create flyers announcing a community event). Our high-tech partners also provide hands-on training during our monthly STEAM programs, as well as provide opportunities for internships so that our students have an opportunity for real-time on-demand learning. WYF provides interactive online environments for our mentors to engage the students in virtual web-based mentorship and leadership training sessions. Our students have an opportunity to learn how to start a business or write marketing and business plans. Our goal for these sessions is to provide real-world virtual activities that can inspire and motivate our teens in a comfortable environment where they enjoy learning. WYF leverages technology to fuel project-based learning, an exciting area where our students and mentors work together to solve problems, meet challenges, and create products and artifacts. Our project-based learning program enhances critical thinking and problem-solving skills and fosters academic achievement. Here’s a glance at some of the workshops – Universal Design Thinking, Storyboarding, Entrepreneur Lab, Interactive App Development, and Shark Pitch platform. These engagements best prepare them to participate and compete at the annual Wall Street Project in New York, or the Legislative Enrichment Field Trip in Washington, D.C. Applying these unique strategies and interactive approaches, students are gaining excitement about academic learning and an eagerness to navigate the many pitfalls and the unknown. Overall, the STEAM program combats the rise in dropouts, and students terminating their education before they begin to live. “It is often said that youth are society’s future; we need to prepare and nurture them if we desire that future to be bright and productive. Yet, with the spotlight currently on slow economic growth and high unemployment across the U.S., there has been little focus on the plight of youth as they transition from school to adult life. But in the summer of 2011, the unemployment rate of 16-24-year-olds was more than 18% or twice the overall unemployment rate; and for young African Americans and Hispanics, it was 30% and 20%, respectively. At the same time, youth are finding it hard to get any work experience: the percentage of the overall youth population with a job was less than 50%, a decline of 7 percentage points since 2008, and among African Americans only about a third had jobs. Many who were not employed were neither looking for a job nor engaged in education or training. A large number of youth had already terminated their education, in many cases dropping out of high school, without making the transition to work or even into the labor market”. (January 2012, Clive R. Belfield -Queens College, City University of New York: The Economic Value of Opportunity Youth). WYF strongly aligns with America’s Promise Alliance founded in 1997 at the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future. As the declaration was signed calling upon our nation to keep five crucial promises to every young person in America: “the preserve of caring adults in their lives; safe surroundings to live; learn and grow, healthy starts and healthy childhoods; an effective education that builds marketable skills; and opportunities to serve others”. Aligning with their signature effort, the GradNation campaign mobilizes Americans to increase the on-time high school graduation rate to 90 percent by 2030 and prepare young people for postsecondary enrollment and the 21st-century workforce Nationally, the conversation is aimed at building and cultivating the next generation workforce. Both public and private entities are seeking innovative measures to boost the graduation rates and assist students in higher degree plans. Our track record has garnered us the title of being “The spare tire for parents”!