Our Legacy...
Is the facilitation, growth, and empowerment of upstanding, educated and productive young people.
Poverty alone has been identified as one of the most significant risk factors for impaired social and psychological development among youth (Luthar 1991; Werner 1990). Children growing up in poverty stricken neighborhoods under siege by violence, drugs and ignorance are vulnerable to a variety of negative outcomes, including but not limited to, drugs or drug abuse, sexual diseases or teen pregnancy, incarceration and school drop out. But it has also been proven that if you provide a child with stability, structure, a positive image, resources, opportunity and love then the chances of survival and success have increased exponentially because of the resilience and cultural integrity gained from enduring such an environment. This is our belief and vision.
Using the factors listed above we facilitate educational resilience and success through the various programs that we afford the at-risk youth within the community. It is our belief that education, coupled with our CORE values, can be a counter balance to the poverty stricken inner city environment. It is also our belief that with education, traditional or non-traditional, at-risk youth have a better chance for success and upward mobility, which not only affects them but their family as well.
Our Purpose: To empower at-risk youth and establish education, both traditional and non-traditional, as an integral part of their life.
Our Mission: To establish educational resilience in every youth through facilitating choices, opportunities and modeling appropriate behaviors by restructuring cognitive distortions and correcting social skill deficiencies.
How: By affording them the opportunity, resources, structure, stability, encouragement and empowerment through our E.M.E.R.S.E. programs and our C.O.R.E. values.
E.M.E.R.S.E.
EMERSE is an acronym for Establishing a Mindset for Educational Resilience so Students can Excel. There are three major components to the EMERSE program. The first is to empower our youth, second is to instill our CORE values, and lastly we have a number of programs specifically designed to accommodate different sub-groups of the at-risk youth category.
Every youth within the EMERSE program is what we call an EY or empowered youth. The doctrine adopted by our EY’s is “I am the most powerful person within my universe.” We want our youth to live and breath this motto to help empower them and other’s around them as well. EY’s are taught that if you do not control your own destiny, then someone else will. What this does is generate and give them a sense of control that they would otherwise not have while giving them control and ownership over the choices they make in life.
This leads us to the next component of our program, which is the CORE values. CORE other wise known as Choices, Ownership, Respect and Evaluate
Choice: Our life is the sum result of all the choices that we make, both seen and unseen. If we can control the process of choosing, we can take control of all aspects of our life. We can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of ourselves. For every action taken there is a choice that was made. Some choices we live not only once but a hundred times over.
Ownership: When we take ownership of our lives and actions, the things that make up our lives are increasingly under the control of fewer and fewer hands.
Respect: There are countless ways of attaining greatness, but any road traveled to reaching one's maximum potential must be built on a foundation of respect for the self, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of all things mediocre.”
Evaluate: Often we must learn to evaluate the path that has been laid before us and decide if it is in our best interest to continue along this road or get of and create own trail.
But it is also important for our youth to understand that
Ownership over and accountability for the choices that they do make. Be responsible… Encourage…
Is the facilitation, growth, and empowerment of upstanding, educated and productive young people.
Poverty alone has been identified as one of the most significant risk factors for impaired social and psychological development among youth (Luthar 1991; Werner 1990). Children growing up in poverty stricken neighborhoods under siege by violence, drugs and ignorance are vulnerable to a variety of negative outcomes, including but not limited to, drugs or drug abuse, sexual diseases or teen pregnancy, incarceration and school drop out. But it has also been proven that if you provide a child with stability, structure, a positive image, resources, opportunity and love then the chances of survival and success have increased exponentially because of the resilience and cultural integrity gained from enduring such an environment. This is our belief and vision.
Using the factors listed above we facilitate educational resilience and success through the various programs that we afford the at-risk youth within the community. It is our belief that education, coupled with our CORE values, can be a counter balance to the poverty stricken inner city environment. It is also our belief that with education, traditional or non-traditional, at-risk youth have a better chance for success and upward mobility, which not only affects them but their family as well.
Our Purpose: To empower at-risk youth and establish education, both traditional and non-traditional, as an integral part of their life.
Our Mission: To establish educational resilience in every youth through facilitating choices, opportunities and modeling appropriate behaviors by restructuring cognitive distortions and correcting social skill deficiencies.
How: By affording them the opportunity, resources, structure, stability, encouragement and empowerment through our E.M.E.R.S.E. programs and our C.O.R.E. values.
E.M.E.R.S.E.
EMERSE is an acronym for Establishing a Mindset for Educational Resilience so Students can Excel. There are three major components to the EMERSE program. The first is to empower our youth, second is to instill our CORE values, and lastly we have a number of programs specifically designed to accommodate different sub-groups of the at-risk youth category.
Every youth within the EMERSE program is what we call an EY or empowered youth. The doctrine adopted by our EY’s is “I am the most powerful person within my universe.” We want our youth to live and breath this motto to help empower them and other’s around them as well. EY’s are taught that if you do not control your own destiny, then someone else will. What this does is generate and give them a sense of control that they would otherwise not have while giving them control and ownership over the choices they make in life.
This leads us to the next component of our program, which is the CORE values. CORE other wise known as Choices, Ownership, Respect and Evaluate
Choice: Our life is the sum result of all the choices that we make, both seen and unseen. If we can control the process of choosing, we can take control of all aspects of our life. We can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of ourselves. For every action taken there is a choice that was made. Some choices we live not only once but a hundred times over.
Ownership: When we take ownership of our lives and actions, the things that make up our lives are increasingly under the control of fewer and fewer hands.
Respect: There are countless ways of attaining greatness, but any road traveled to reaching one's maximum potential must be built on a foundation of respect for the self, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of all things mediocre.”
Evaluate: Often we must learn to evaluate the path that has been laid before us and decide if it is in our best interest to continue along this road or get of and create own trail.
But it is also important for our youth to understand that
Ownership over and accountability for the choices that they do make. Be responsible… Encourage…
