serving urban youth.

The Serving Urban Youth Project (grant entitled Meeting the Needs of Youth in Disadvantaged Circumstances: a Service Learning Approach) was funded through a Learn and Serve grant through the Midwest Consortium for Service Learning in Higher Education (MCSLHE).  This is a year-long project that began in early 2007 with the planning of an Intergenerational Dialogue, which included members of nonprofit partners in the Omaha Community with some of their volunteers and clients, as well as professors and students from UNO. 

The Intergenerational Dialogue took place on March 13, 2007 and included discussions to discover the challenges of youth in our community who are growing up in disadvantaged circumstances.  This dialogue session was attended by 53 people, three of whom were from the “Legacy” generation (over age 62).  Eleven UNO students from the Goodrich Scholarship Program and Project Achieve attended and served as Table Hosts or Scribes for eight dialogue groups. 

The dialogue groups not only identified key challenges / barriers, but also identified the types of interventions that could address these challenges/barriers.  The challenges and interventions fell into six key clusters: 

1. Need for Role Models / Mentoring
2. Health Concerns / Health Education
3. Youth Voice:  Councils / Forums
4. Parenting / Parent Education
5. Employment / Pathways to success
6. Media Education 

These intervention clusters became the focus of the next dialogue session on March 23, 2007.  The purpose of this second session was to form partnerships and develop collaborative projects to address the challenges.  At the end of the morning, there were seven projects that had been outlined.  Additionally, there were several more projects that needed additional partners and additional formation.  Approximately 36 people attended all or part of this session. 

Subsequent to these two sessions, UNO faculty have written mini-grants to fund course-related projects addressing these issues.

For more information, contact Carlynn Hartman-Kurtz, Community Liaison of the UNO Service-Learning Academy at 402.554.2712 or chartmankurtz@mail.unomaha.edu