For the past 35 years,Youth Action YouthBuild (YAYB) has acted on the belief that youth can be a powerful force for good in their neighborhood. From its base in East Harlem, Youth Action's primary mission is to provide education, training, and leadership opportunities to low-income young adults while engaging them in the creation of affordable housing. Our overall goal is to create a community of youth and young adults committed to taking responsibility for their own lives and for improving the larger community.
In our YouthBuild program, low-income young people, ages 17 to 24, work full-time for 10 months, alternating between preparing for GED/TASC high school equivalency exams and building and maintaining affordable housing right here in East Harlem, learning a variety of professional skills throughout the process. Our staff of educators and counselors emphasize leadership development, community service, and creating a strong community of adults and youth committed to each other’s success. By completing a year of community service, students earn AmeriCorps education awards. This commitment to service equates over 600 hours per student, or over 20,000 hours devoted to East Harlem every year! At exit, our youth are placed in college, jobs, or both.
At Youth Action YouthBuild, we have wonderful teachers to help our students prepare for the GED exam and gain practical skills to further their careers. Construction skills serve as the centerpiece of our career development training. This focus stems from East Harlem youth’s determination at the founding of the organization that livable affordable housing and employment were key to the betterment of the greater East Harlem community. In addition, youth have the option to engage in training and experience in the areas of security work, home health care, housing maintenance, automotive services, and office work. We are also working to develop a curriculum on weatherization skills, so that our graduates can find gainful employment reducing energy consumption around New York City, participating in the greater fight against climate change.
To connect YouthBuild graduates to in-demand career paths, YA YouthBuild reaches out to community training agencies and local employers to establish career tracks that guide students through the ten month YouthBuild cycle. We connect students to in-demand occupations such as construction; building maintenance and operations; security; hospitality; healthcare; and commuter technology. Our students don’t just work after our program, though. They also go on to higher education, nearly always as first generation college students. Our Career Services Department maintains close relationships with a number of local universities to ensure our students have tangible educational opportunities.
The very best services that come out of our Career Services Department however, are the personable and supportive relationships that grow between our counselors and youth. These relationships stay with our graduates for months and even years after they leave the building. We make sure that our youth complete the program with the support they need to maintain the confidence and skills they develop during their time at YouthBuild.
Our YouthBuild program never has trouble reaching out to the community and finding youth in need. During August and September 2012 we received 250 applications for 35 YouthBuild slots. This speaks to the profound nature of the desire for change among the young men and women of East Harlem.
In East Harlem Community Board #11's 2011 Statement of District Need, our neighborhood leadership presented Mayor Bloomberg with a summary of the challenges facing the district along with several recommendations. Among the challenges identified was the evidence of gentrification in some sections of the District, exposing residents to the risk of displacement; lack of affordable housing for working families; the highest jobless rates in the City; a median household income for District 11 that is 45.7% of the median income of Manhattan; over one third of East Harlem youth unemployed; only one third of the district’s population with a high school diploma and less than 10% with a college degree. The Board made these recommendations: 1) Improve educational opportunities for youth to complete secondary education and enter college; 2) Make job training for youth a top priority; 3) Increase access to job training programs that have been successful in East Harlem; 4) Link job placement with future capital investment in housing and infrastructure; 5) Require all District 11 developments to hire at least 65% of employees from the East Harlem community. These recommendations all indicate the profound, continued relevance of YouthBuild programming.
Since 1978, we've transformed the lives of thousands of young people, and we're not done yet!