YW Leaders Youth Program

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YW Leaders

Sponsored by M&T Bank, YW Leaders collaborates with YWCA Delaware’s Youth and Racial and Social Justice programs to provide a forum for discussing racial equity and inclusion. This program creates a framework to help students become the driving force behind social change. Facilitator-led sessions teach effective communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution training. The curriculum provides skillsets to help serve students throughout their academic and professional careers.

Sessions are offered in-person and online through four educational modules that cover the following topics:

  • Individual & Cultural Competency: aims to help students explore and understand culture and identity.
  • Healthy & Courageous Conversations About Race: seeks to help students experience a positive attitude toward people with diverse backgrounds whose appearance, values, and interests are different from their own.
  • Advocacy & Civic Engagement: provides tools to help students learn how to advocate for racial and social justice.
  • Leadership Training: teaches students how to become racial and social justice leaders in their community and bring other students along for the journey.

Program Outcomes – This program is designed to help students:

    • Develop language and knowledge to accurately and respectfully describe how people (including themselves) are both similar to and different from each other and others in their identity groups.
    • Respectfully express curiosity about the history and lived experiences of others and will exchange ideas and beliefs in an open-minded way.
    • Respond to diversity by building empathy, respect, understanding, and connection.
    • Express comfort with people who are both similar to and different from them and engage respectfully with all people.
    • Examine diversity in social, cultural, political, and historical contexts rather than in ways that are superficial or oversimplified.
    • Develop the confidence and skills to actively participate and become involved in the local school, and community initiatives relating to racial and social justice
    • Learn to facilitate healthy dialogues among peers regarding racial and social justices

Additional Outcomes

YW Leaders helps increase representation within organizations or institutions with the power to make decisions affecting diverse racial, ethnic, language, or cultural groups and/or in specific positions of authority, leadership and power. The program also increases civic leadership of recent immigrants and refugees.

Time Commitment

This program is a 16-hour time commitment with scheduling based on each partnering schools’ preference. To learn more, please contact rcotto@ywcade.org. Students must have a parent/legal guardian sign and return the YW Leaders permission form to participate. Students may have the opportunity to train and educate the next group of leaders during the following school year. However, this opportunity depends on student and school availability. Upon completing the program, students will receive an accomplished YW leader certificate to add to their resume and college application.

Interested in Joining YW Leaders?

High School students interested in participating in YW Leaders should click on the button below to complete the interest form.

YW LEADERS INTEREST FORM

 

Latest News from YW Leaders

YW Leaders of Archmere Academy and Mount Pleasant High School traveled to Legislative Hall in May 2023 to interview elected officials including Lieutenant Governor Bethany Hall-Long and Delaware state legislators including Rep. Eric Morrison, Rep. Larry Lambert, Rep. Sherry Dorsey Walker, Sen. Elizabeth Lockman and Sen. Sarah McBride on May 4. Students asked each legislator what motivated them to run for office and learned about the legislative process. They also participated in a history tour of the capitol building and attended a legislative proceeding. While stepping off the bus that drove him and fellow classmates to Legislative Hall, YW Leader, Joseph Ndaguba, said “I have never even been to Dover, and that experience was really new. I really forgot that legislators are just like all of us. Now I see them as someone that I can also be, and I didn’t see them like that before.” As he waited for his ride home Joseph said, “I definitely think it’s important for us to be able to speak to our legislators and share our opinions because we are the community that they are working for. We have to be good at communicating with them and I think everyone should get the chance to do so.”