Youth Engagement
Enhancing youth leadership skills is a key component in all of our youth work.
We provide workshops, technical assistance and training for youth, and the adults who support them. We currently have versions of the Legacy Project currently running in Fresno and New Orleans.
Youth services and resources currently offered include:
- Customized workshops and programs for youth, as well as for adults who work with youth.
- The Legacy Project, a summer employment and leadership skills training program.
- YES! Kit, a printed training curriculum with DVD support available for purchase and use by adults and youth workers.
Legacy Project
The program teaches young people how to be instruments of social change and equips them with the skills necessary to be educators of other youth. Youth gain the ability to understand their current reality through a historical, economic, and psychological lens that takes into account the effect that such oppression has over time on individuals and communities.
The Legacy Project is run in Fresno, CA with the potential to be replicated in other parts of the US, depending on funding and local interest. Legacy is financially supported by both individuals and private and corporate foundations.
Liberation Generation
Liberation Generation! is a new VISIONS program for clients who are interested in conducting or supporting youth programming in their communities. It includes a 16-module curriculum, a training of the trainer (4-day), and coaching for youth development professionals who implement the Liberation Generation! curriculum in their respective communities. The goal of Liberation Generation! is to empower communities to use the VISIONS tools with their programs in a way that makes sense for them. The idea is that VISIONS Inc. Consultants do not need to be physically present in youth programs for them to teach our model to their youth.
Yes! Kit Guide
The guide is divided into five distinct sessions that focus on each key element of the process of learning and change. With this tool, educators and youth workers can move youth from awareness to action, guided by topics such as recognizing varying forms of exclusion, understanding the impact of personal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and translating new information and insights to the real world.
Youth Empowerment Workshop
Both youth and the adults who work with them report that VISIONS training has:
- Allowed youth and staff to share a common framework and language.
- Interrupted the perpetuation of “one-downing” of other groups.
- Increased young people’s self-confidence and their perception of themselves as leaders and allies.
- Improved both youth and adults’ ability to deal with internal conflicts and collaborate more effectively.
- Made both the organization and the youth more successful in achieving their social justice mission.