Mission: The mission of The Future Leaders Institute is to engage visionary youth in generating and implementing solutions for society. The Future Leaders Institute (FLI) mentors youth across the San Francisco Bay area, supporting them as they develop individual initiatives and employ social entrepreneurship in the face of the world's most pressing needs.
Programs: What if every young person could pursue their dreams in a way that created real solutions to our community’s everyday problems? They can at The Future Leaders Institute!
The Future Leaders Institute (FLI) was founded in 2004 to engage high school youth in generating and implementing visionary solutions for society. Since its humble beginning of just 6 students at The Athenian School, FLI has moved on to serve over 600 students who have completed more than 75,000 service learning hours. Over the years students have raised awareness and funds for numerous causes and organizations in areas such as Education, Economic Development, Arts, Environment, Health, Poverty, Animal Rights and Technology.
FLI is a 10-month program integrated into the school day which invites young people to discover their passions and to respond with action. The FLI Passion-to-Action™ curriculum and pedagogical approach is comprised of the most effective, research-based components of successful youth, education and service-learning programs. This curriculum has been developed over a decade of reflective practice and scholarly research in youth and leadership development, service-learning and education reform. FLI is a nimble organization that is aware of innovation and best practices in order to maximize upon each student’s ability and commitment to contribute in meaningful ways. In each of the 23 partner schools where the FLI program has been implemented, students have moved beyond the limitations of their current education and evolved as models of hope for their peers and those who helped guide them.
Through the FLI Program, each FLI participant:
* Articulates a personal dream or passion and
* Identifies three possible projects that offer to create significant community benefit
* Researches the feasibility and social return-on-investment of the potential projects
* Selects and initiates the project with maximum projected social impact
* Receives $200 to launch their FLI project
* Creates and manages a budget
* Identifies and interviews community leaders who have realized the FLI member?s dream
* Publicly presents his/her community impact and legacy at the Final Community Presentation
I am a 3rd year student at Duy Tan University in Da Nang City, Vietnam. I have known Love Of Vietnam Expressed (L.O.V.E) since I was a fresh year student. L.O.V.E is established not only with purpose of giving physical help but also spiritual help. I am lucky to receive L.O.V.E's support that make me feel like staying in a big family where I receive God's love, help and motivation in life. Thanks to L.O.V.E's help, poor students like me have more chances to get better education so that they can change their lives. I believe that L.O.V.E's work will be widened much more and in the future I wish to give some contribution with L.O.V.E to help many needy people in Vietnam.
FLI is a wonderful program that serves youth by having them explore what is meaningful to them and seeing how they can use their passions to serve the world in a positive, real way. Rarely in life do we get this opportunity and for the students who go through this program (as well as the people they touch) it can be life altering as it can change the trajectory of their lives. I served on the Board for 4 years and saw the impact on 100's of students. I was, many times, touched, moved and inspired. I think that FLI can use more infrastructure and support from the communities it serves and that through this collaboration the program can produce even more outstanding results.
