Empowering Tomorrow's Leaders: Highlights from IBA’s 2024 Summer Youth Development Program
30 talented and engaged students participated in IBA’s 2024 summer Youth Development Program. Students hosted an end of program showcase: "Stories from Our Community" featuring art and performances on home, identity and culture. It was an inspiring display of learning, self-reflection and creativity. The intensive summer program runs six weeks, 5 days per week from 9am-3pm, giving students an opportunity to improve academic skills, prepare for college and career pathways and provides a safe space for self-reflection, exploration and goal setting.
Youth Development Program (YDP) prepares underserved high school students, ages 14-18, each year for college and professional careers by engaging them in an employment-based programing. YDP’s programming integrates academic and life skills workshops with arts and social justice-centered projects. Each week, participants engage in academic support activities and life skills programming (career planning, resume building, mock interviews, financial education workshops, etc.). This programming is supplemented with civic engagement and arts education projects, providing participants with an opportunity to explore their emotions surrounding sensitive topics such as gentrification, institutional sexism/racism, and toxic masculinity in a safe space through music projects, poetry workshops, mural making, and performance opportunities. 100% of senior participants graduate from program with a college or career path plan.
PEER LEADER JEREMY
SUMMER 2024
“I liked this program because it gave me a lot of opportunities to build my communication and teamwork skills. We went on a lot of college tours. Those trips helped me decide if we wanted to go to college and we have a better understanding of what college is like now. We learned how to make a resume and we learned more about how to be more job ready. We came and dressed up and learned how to be an interview so we could practice what a real one would look like. We learned how to be more responsible with our money. I made my first bank account for this job and set up direct deposit and learned how to manage my money. I learned how to write poems and how poems should be composed of and how to be more creative with my art and how to put all my thoughts into one big masterpiece.”...