Celebrating 40 Years of Generating Change!
On March 16, 1983, the National Youth Leadership Council (NYLC) was founded by Dr. James Kielsmeier to train young people to be servant leaders, originally in response to tension caused by court-mandated school integration. Students were coached to respond to racial injustices and utilize acts of service to create inclusion in their schools. NYLC’s original mission statement stated that “young people are necessary resources to society with inherent ideals, boundless energy and flexibility making them important co-creators and co-workers with older adults”. From this early start, NYLC has led a movement linking youth, educators, and communities to redefine the [...]
Latinx Youth Saving Lives Through Culturally-Specific Service-Learning
When Minerva Garcia and Izabella Varela noticed the effects of COVID-19 on Latinx communities, they jumped at the opportunity to involve the Ascendencia affinity group at Northside College Prep in Chicago to be part of the solution. They joined a national initiative of Latinx people serving their communities and country to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 through targeted bilingual messaging in English and Spanish. As of September 2021, only 39% of Latinx people in the United States had been fully vaccinated, and Latinx groups continue to have disproportionately higher hospitalization and death rates due to COVID-19. As a national [...]
Connecting Girls Across the World to Change the World
By Christian Buonfiglio, Guest Writer Daisy Leonard and her sisters, Coco and Sunny, have problems of global importance to solve. Racial and religious hatred, the decline in the mental health of young people, and the marginalization of girls drove them to create Dynamic Champions of Sisterhood, an online reading club that connects girls from all over the world to help them build confidence, challenge old ideas, and change the world. The Leonard sisters created DCS with funding provided by the Points of Light Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to engaging with people from all walks of life to help the world [...]