Young Citizens, Inc.

Causes: Children & Youth, Education, Educational Services, Job Training, Philanthropy, Voluntarism Promotion, Youth Development - Citizenship

Mission: The mission of Young Citizens, Inc. is to instill in young people a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship while strengthening the academic skills they will need to succeed as adults. We do this through service-learning, a teaching and learning approach that integrates volunteer service with academic coursework to enrich learning, teach civic responsibility and improve neighborhoods and communities. The organization was established in 1982 as the Early Adolescent Helper Program, under the sponsorship of the Center for Advanced Study in Education, at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. It was created to provide services to adolescents, ages 10-14, who are at-risk during the after school hours. In 1995, it was restructured and became an independent nonprofit organization. Through professional development and on-site technical assistance, we help teachers and youth workers to develop their vision of a quality service-learning program then provide them with the tools they need to realize that vision. Specifically, Young Citizens' professional development services focus on 1) planning logistics, 2) curriculum integration, 3) structured reflection, 4) recognizing the achievements of participants, and 5) building community support.The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, in its landmark reports Turning Points (1989) and Great Transitions (1995), recommended that every middle school require students to participate in service-learning and specifically cited our service-learning models.