By Johnnie Hawkins, Consultant, Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
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Sponsored by CCDO and the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE), this 4-day event offered training seminars and exercises to hone attendees' leadership development and presentation skills. The youth leaders also planned, developed, and strengthened their key goals for improving their communities. These goals include increasing youth involvement in local and national Weed and Seed strategies, serving as peer mentors and community advocates, and assessing critical problem behaviors and risk factors in their communities and developing solutions to them.
This event marked the fourth year that CNE has partnered with CCDO to provide youth leadership development activities for the Weed and Seed strategy. CNE was selected by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2003 to help build the capacities of grassroots organizations in Weed and Seed areas and to create a youth leadership development initiative.
CNE formally launched its Youth Initiative in June 2004 with the first Weed and Seed Youth Leadership Summer Camp in Snowbird, a resort area near Salt Lake City, UT. Since then, CNE has hosted Summer Youth Leadership Camps annually, with 76 youth attending the 2006 camp in Phoenix, AZ.
Site coordinators of local Weed and Seed communities recruit young people for the Youth Leadership Council each year, paying particular attention to each individual's level of activity and leadership within their Weed and Seed sites and their communities. Once selected, the youth's trip to Washington, DC, is paid for by their Weed and Seed site, community businesses or organizations, and other sponsors. Among the attendees are the council's officers, who were elected at the previous year's camp; subcommittee members, consisting of volunteers among the Youth Leadership Council attendees; other interested youth leaders; and chaperones. The summer camp is open to any youth who is active in his or her Weed and Seed site.
At each camp, youth participate in activities that teach them how to identify problems within their communities, create solutions to negative conditions, and motivate their peers to help them improve those conditions. In addition, youth begin learning the skills of leadership, civic engagement, and community assessment and principles associated with creating a quality living environment for themselves and their peers.
Several local initiatives have sprung from the leadership of youth who are participating in the Youth Initiative:
- Indianapolis, IN. Youth are leading a consortium of their peers to work toward creating peaceful conditions in and around school. Calling themselves "The Esquires," this group promotes goodwill among peers, works to promote safer learning environments, and strives to strengthen relationships with law enforcement.
- Providence and Pawtucket, RI. Youth are organizing a weeklong Peace Week to highlight how violence affects everyone and how communities can respond to it. The goal is to support youth in promoting peace and ending violence.
- Pine Bluff, AR. Youth have applied ideas from the camps and council meetings to strengthen a second-generation "King's Team," a group modeled on the principles of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The group's mission is to champion a nonviolent approach to resolving conflict in the community and promote cooperation and tolerance among culturally diverse youth groups.
- Miami, FL. Youth are rallying together to end the violence in their community and to end school truancy among their peers.
- Cleveland, OH. Youth are working to create a one-stop youth service provider center to address many of the critical and social needs that youth may experience while growing up.
- Waycross, GA. Youth collected data and used it in presentations to their local city commissioners, asking them to prevent and deter open-season licensing of businesses that want to open liquor stores in their community.
- Buffalo, NY. The mayor has invited youth to organize a Mayor's Advisory Council to keep him abreast of matters relating to youth in Buffalo.
In summer 2007, CNE will conduct the Fourth Annual Weed and Seed Youth Leadership Camp in Florida, tentatively scheduled for July 22–29 near Walt Disney World.
For more information about the CNE-CCDO Youth Initiative, contact:
Charles L. Perry or Ruth Cleveland
Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
For information about the Youth Council, contact:
Johnnie Hawkins
Consultant, Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
