Youth Mentoring

Imagine: Your home was destroyed. Your parents were killed and you and your younger siblings flee the country you have always called home. You make your way to a refugee camp several years later by hiding and sleeping in the elements begging for help in villages along the way, all the time not knowing what tomorrow would bring. After years in a refugee camp, you walk off an airplane to a place you are supposed to call “home.” No one understands you and you cannot understand one word anyone says to you. This is where they sent you. It is strange, the architecture, the way people dress, move, and interact is all unfamiliar. Within a couple of weeks you need to find a job and a place to live in this scary alien world. We help these people.

Their past is war and famine. Their future can be health and success. You can help a young adult change the world as we know it. We are investing in the next generation.

Our Youth Mentoring Program finds volunteers to help young adult Refugees between the ages of 15-24 to achieve the following:

• Empower their confidence and ability to achieve education and career goals
• Gain self-esteem
• Build a sense of belonging
• Increase their motivation to engage in civic life in the community

We have seen how education and a determination to fulfill goals can change the lives of some of these young people. It brightens communities and gives hope to others. Here in the Panhandle, we have many tools at our disposal to help change lives. The following is a list of crucial elements for these life changes to take place:

• Higher education
• Work skills
• Community involvement
• Clubs, programs, and other youth willing to make friends

All it takes is someone willing to make a difference.

The Youth Mentoring Program encourages young adults to have an adventure. An adventure through education, job skills, socializing, government and community involvement.