YOUTH PROGRAM
Our goal is to reach out to areas where young immigrants are experiencing problems, such as school, employment, family life or other aspects of their life. The aim is to educate, inspire, counsel and mentor by giving them the tools needed to succeed in this great country of opportunities. Our youth program revolves around 4 priority issues:
- Promote responsible behaviors.
- Support academic achievement
- Healthy recreation activities
- Advocacy
- 1. Promote responsible behaviors.
- By promoting responsible behaviors, we educate the youth about the effects of drugs on their life, and also educate them on alcohol abuse prevention. We also talk about sexual health as in many immigrant communities’ discussions between children and parents about sexual behaviors are still a taboo. During those sessions, we educate them particularly about consequences of unplanned pregnancies and other sexual transmitted diseases.
- 2. Support academic achievement
- We offer mentoring and counselling sessions for youth with social and academic challenges. We inspire them, mentor them and also provide them with a platform for sharing their experiences and building community ties. We also offer reinforcement classes for STEM subjects to help some of them get good grades in science subjects and those in high school, help them prepare well for the SAT.
- 3. Healthy recreation activities
- We organize after schools and other free time activities around Art and Sport. These activities do not only give a chance to those young people to be themselves, free of the structure they face at school or in their families, but also give them the opportunity to improve their social skills, sense-of-self and relationships with adults other than mom and dad. These also serve as an alternative to other less safe activities that those young people may get involved in when out of their parents' watch.
- 4. Advocacy.
- Our advocacy work is mainly done through campaigns, community events and meetings. We also facilitate with other organizations the sharing of ideas, expertise, and resources in order to find the best creative course of action to address young immigrants’ integration challenges in Maine.
