YAP, Inc.The Neighborhood Advocate

For over 40 years Burrus has advocated for the developmentally disabled 

Lebanon County, PA – Serving her community and working with young people and adults with disabilities for more than 40 years has earned Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc., National Coordinator of Development Disabilities an induction into the Lebanon County Commission For Women (LCCW) Hall of Fame.

Lori Burrus, who has been with YAP since 2004, will receive the honor from the Lebanon County Commission for Women’s Hall of Fame Luncheon on March 22 at the Fairland BIC Fellowship Hall in Cleona, Pa. She is one of 11 recipients who, according to LCCW website,  live and work in Lebanon Valley, Pa., or have played an integral part in development and or implementation of projects that have benefited women and girls in the area. The honorees will be recognized for their work in 2022. Burrus was nominated by Michael Schroeder, who serves alongside her on the Lebanon County Pennsylvania NAACP.

“I nominated Lori Burrus because I’ve worked with her through the Lebanon County NAACP and I just became really impressed with her as a person, as a leader, as a community activist, as a human being and she just strikes me as really meritorious,” said Schroeder who serves as the secretary for the Lebanon County PA NAACP. “She is a really good person and has made a profound difference in the community without singing her own praises or blowing her own horn.”

YAP is a national nonprofit organization in 33 states and the District of Columbia providing community-based services as alternatives to youth incarceration, congregate residential care, and neighborhood violence. Burrus started with YAP as a coordinator of developmental disabilities, serving in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland. She’s been in her current position since 2014 learning about new services or programs and extending that knowledge to support staff working with people who have intellectual or developmental disabilities. Additionally, Burrus works closely with program directors in assisting them with implementing new programs and supporting them with tools they need to make effective changes in their communities.

“YAP has been such an integral part of my career,” Burrus said. “Doing employment services has impacted me and the youth and the adults we support. Forty years ago, people with disabilities were only given the option of a sheltered workshop.”

Prior to YAP, Burrus worked as a coordinator and director of Community Services in Lebanon, Pa. Brittany Hilton, who used to work with Burrus at YAP and serves on the Commission for Women and the Hall of Fame committee, said Burrus is an inspiration to her and is someone who is not afraid of adversity.

“(Burrus) was not only a boss, but is a mentor and role model,” Hilton said. “The way she leads and builds confidence in others cannot be beaten. She has set a high standard for all other leaders and bosses in my life. I truly attribute the success I’ve had in building a career as a human services supervisor to her.”

Burrus currently serves as chair of the Lebanon County NAACP’s Legal Redress Committee, taking complaints from those who feel they have had their civil rights violated.

“If someone is experiencing discrimination at work or in housing or at school, we receive these complaints and Lori has been spearheading that committee and meeting with complainants; taking notes and getting their story, along with providing an ear as well,” Schroeder said. “Sometimes people just want to be listened to.”

Lebanon County NAACP President and Pastor Tony Fields, Sr., has known Burrus for three years.  Fairly new to the Lebanon County area himself, Fields says he depends on Burrus.

“She’s someone who will keep you grounded,” Fields said. “(Burrus) has wisdom. She’s not easily frazzled. As a leader you need someone in your corner that is not going to panic. You need that confidant. This day and age I couldn’t think of anyone better than her. Again, because of her role and knowing the community, she is well deserving of this induction.”

Burrus is spearheading an African American heritage trail in Lebanon County and was instrumental in helping form the local chapter of the Lebanon County NAACP in 2020. Schroeder also credits her with helping the civil rights organization to connect with the Lebanon County Criminal Justice Advisory Board (CJAB), which encourages collaboration in the criminal justice community.

“Lori has diligently attended CJAB meetings and made her presence felt for more than a year now,” Schroeder said. “She is very deliberate and respectful, and I think the CJAB is probably ready to accept our solicitation to become core members. If they do, it will be largely thanks to Lori’s quiet, understated hard work and commitment to making this happen and to having community voices heard within what’s been up till now an exclusively governmental organization.”

Burrus has dedicated her life to improving the lives of others, Schroeder wrote in the application essay he wrote when nominating her.

“Lori’s work has touched the lives of thousands of developmentally challenged young people and adults in Lebanon County and beyond in ways that have made their lives substantially better,” Schroeder additionally wrote. “Lori works to empower women and girls to be confident, effective, capable, and comfortable in their own skins by encouraging them to feel secure in who they are and know they have what it takes to succeed.  She listens carefully, withholds judgment, and always exudes an abiding respect for the whole person. Her demeanor is one of quiet confidence and calm, steady, attentive caring.”

For more information about YAP, visit yapinc.org.

Harrisburg, Pa. — Twelve years after getting a job at Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. as a Behavioral Health program therapist, Frida Shu reflects on her journey and sees why her work comes so naturally.

YAP is a national nonprofit in 33 states and the District of Columbia that provides more effective community-based services as an alternative to congregate residential youth justice, child welfare and behavioral health placements. Across the country, cities are also making the YAP model part of their community violence reduction initiatives.

Last year, Frida was on the campus of an elementary school to visit with a program participant and heard someone call her name.

“I heard, ‘Ms. Frida; Ms. Frida.’” The voice sounded familiar. “When I looked up, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. The voice belonged to a young woman in her mid-twenties.

“She was the first person I ever worked with at YAP back in 2011,” Frida said. “At the time, she was battling anxiety and depression. When I saw her and she called me over to her, she was picking up her daughter. I was so happy; I gave her a hug. I’d been wondering about her,” she said. “‘This is my car; I have a boyfriend,’” she remembers the young woman saying as she caught Frida up on how well she was doing.

“I was so happy. I was so proud of her. She was happy, healthy and had a job; and she was behaving!  When I met her, she was probably 16 and so advanced socially. Her grandma would cry to me, saying that she hadn’t seen her for days,” Frida said. “I’d advise this girl on how to control her anger and the moment I’d leave, before I got home, she would have already left the house. It was the same way at school. I’d be there with her for three hours and as soon as I left, she was out the door with boys or smoking.”

These days most of the program participants Frida works with face complex behavioral health struggles as well as developmental disabilities-related challenges. She said 85 percent of the young people that she works with are on the autism spectrum and that given her personal story, it makes sense that her job comes almost second nature.

Born in Cameroon, Frida, her husband and three young children moved to the United States in 1999, among the 50,000 immigrants selected that year through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program lottery. They lived for several years in Camden, N.J. where her husband’s former college classmate served as a sponsor for the family and helped Frida and her husband establish their lives in the U.S.  In Cameroon, Frida had worked as a lab technician and her husband had a government position in the Department of Agriculture.

“My first job [in the U.S.] was with home healthcare, working with people with autism and my husband was doing online studies in London,” she said. “After three years, I went to Rutgers University and got my B.A. in healthcare management. My husband got his degree in agriculture and got a job in Pennsylvania working for the Department of Agriculture and now works for FEMA.”

After relocating to Pennsylvania, Frida applied her experience and degree in a new job as a human services specialist, again, working with people with autism, mostly adults. At the same time, she continued her studies, earning a master’s in mental health. Then in 2011, she learned about YAP and its focus on delivering strength-based individualized services that that keep young people safely home in their communities and with their families, as an alternative to placements in congregate care in facilities and correctional institutions.

“I’ve worked with young people who are on every part of the autism spectrum. The biggest challenge is getting them to feel comfortable with communicating freely and to feel confidence in what they do,” she said. “I like it. In a way, I can place myself in their shoes. We’re all human beings. We all have our own thinking; our own value.”

In her work with YAP over the years, Frida is often reminded of her first years in the U.S. While thrilled to be in a country that offers so many opportunities, she found adjusting did not come without challenges.

“I arrived in February. It was cold and getting to adapt to the system wasn’t easy. Things are so different; so organized. It was a lot to learn quickly coming with children ages 9, 7 and 3 years old,” she said. “Daycare, picking them up from school – a lot. Back home, I had a nanny in the house. But we couldn’t afford that here. Yes, a lot of challenges. In time we arranged our schedules and made other adjustments and we got used to it.”

Frida recalls working with a young YAP program participant and his family who immigrated from Mexico and understanding how much her personal background prepared her for her work with them.

“The experience I had; and what I went through; it helps me. I watched what the parents had been through; how for them to be able to handle their job and take care of a child with mental challenges and facing the system — they were dealing with all of that,” she said.

Frida remembers the worry the 7-year-old boy’s parents felt when they came close to losing him to foster care. “The child was acting out during a time that he was with an older child, and they were both at work. They were reported twice and they were so scared,” she said. “I shared my challenges that I experienced when we first came to the U.S. I gave them the idea for how to fix their schedules so that one of them is at home and the other person is at work.”

Frida was proud to be a part of supporting the family and sees the importance of cultural responsiveness, one of YAP’s core competencies, in her work. She also is aware that there is still a stigma attached to mental health needs and feels honored to be a part of YAP’s work to change that.

See job openings and learn more about YAP at www.YAPInc.org and follow the nonprofit on Twitter @YAPInc.

Hope, Arkansas – Staff at Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. in South Arkansas describe Rainy as one of the hardest working women they know.

“(Rainy) has dedicated her life to making the lives of her family better by working multiple jobs with little rest,” said Lisa Clark, YAP Family Intervention Specialist. “She is determined that if one way doesn’t work, to not stop until she has found another way.”

YAP is a national nonprofit in 33 states and the District of Columbia that partners with youth justice, child welfare, behavioral health, and other systems to provide trauma-informed community-based services as an alternative to youth incarceration, congregate placements, residential treatment, and neighborhood violence.

“We are benefitting from (YAP) in so many ways,” said Rainy whose child was a program participant of YAP.  It was a lot that I didn’t know about (my child) that I am finding out. (My child) has started opening up to me so that wall that she had up, I feel it is coming down now. We are starting to interact with one another better. The family is learning to communicate better and to listen to one another more.”

Rainy, a 35-year-old mother of four, is one of 28 YAP program participants and family members or guardians who received a scholarship from the 2022 Tom Jeffers Endowment Fund for Continuing Education. Currently, Rainy works long hours in a factory job which keeps her away from home for long periods of time.

“On average I work anywhere from 45-70 hours a week,” Rainy said. “My work schedule prevents me from being able to spend time with my children or to interact with them after getting off work because I am so tired.”

The $1,000 scholarship will allow Rainy to return to school, earn a phlebotomy certificate and obtain better employment that will allow her to be home more with her children. YAP scholarships are applied to school tuition, fees or supplies, job training costs, or in the form of a laptop computer.

“We are so proud of Rainy and the progress she is making to ensure her family has a successful and sustainable future,” added Heidi Calhoun, YAP South Arkansas Program and Clinical Director.

Rainy thanks YAP for its help and hopes to help other families who are in similar situations.

“It will help me in so many ways,” she said. “One, I will be able to get a good paying job and not have to keep doing factory work, that takes me away from my kids for long hours. It will also help me with establishing a regular schedule with my family, where I did not have that before.”

YAP’s program in South Arkansas includes Hempstead, Miller, Nevada, Little River, Columbia, Ouachita, Union, Sevier, and LaFayette counties.

To learn more about YAP, visit yapinc.org. You can follow YAP on Twitter @YAPInc.

Elizabethtown, Ky. – Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc., Regional Director Jamaal Crawford served as the guest speaker at Hardin County’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 32^nd Dr. Martin Luther King/Lottie O. Robinson Scholarship Fundraiser Luncheon, on Jan. 16. This year’s theme was “Remember the Dream.”

“YAP is excited to work collaboratively with other partners who want our youth to be successful in their homes,” Crawford said. “Our goal is to provide these kids with as many resources as possible to be successful in these communities. Once our communities buy into wrapping around youth and families, it can only set our kids up to elevate in life.”

YAP is a national nonprofit that provides community-based services in 33 states and the District of Columbia as an alternative to youth incarceration, congregate residential care, and neighborhood violence.

Crawford, who oversees Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, was proud to address attendees in honor of King who was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

For more information about YAP, visit yapinc.org.

Towanda, Penn. – Gaining employment experience is essential for young people and particularly invaluable to individuals who have disabilities.

Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. Bradford County connects high school students and adults who have disabilities or face other employment barriers to on-the-job training opportunities. The program — a partnership with the Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR) – would not be possible without the support of Bradford and Sullivan County businesses.

“I am retired but returned to the workforce because I believe in YAP’s mission of helping youth and their families. My YAP experience has been very rewarding. I love giving back to the community, and I am grateful that local businesses stepped up to assist us in our work,” said YAP Bradford/Sullivan County Employment Specialist Rachelle “Rocky” Thibault-Finan.

YAP is a national nonprofit in 33 states and Washington, D.C. YAP works to keep young people safely home and out of congregate residential care and youth incarceration by providing community-based services as an alternative to child welfare, behavioral health, and intellectual disabilities placements. Headquartered in Harrisburg, YAP is a 47-year-old organization serving 150 communities including Bradford and Sullivan counties.

This holiday season, YAP would like to recognize all Bradford and Sullivan County businesses that have opened their doors to allow our program participants to get real world work experience, which includes:

• Pam’s Restaurant
• Hurley’s Supermarkets – Dushore and Towanda
• Sinclair’s Hardware
• Rainbow Riders
• Bradford County Humane Society
• Nana’s Country Kitchen
• Beeman’s Restaurant
• Animal Care Sanctuary
• Athens Public Library
• Riverside Cemetery Association
• Child Hunger Outreach Partnership of Towanda
• Happy Tails Animal Shelter
• Comfort Inn Sayre

“For 30 years I have been blessed to live in this close-knit community that is kind, welcoming and open to lending a hand to help our young people.” said Thibault-Finan.

If your business would like to be involved, please call the office at (570) 268-5777. For more information about YAP, visit yapinc.org. Follow the nonprofit @YAPInc.

Tampa, Fla. — This month, members of Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. Board of Directors got some up-close-and-personal reminders of why they volunteered to serve the national nonprofit. While in Tampa for a quarterly meeting, the board members met program leaders, partners, and individual benefitting from YAP’s community-based services.

At a dinner the evening before their quarterly meeting, Pinellas Pasco Program Director Heidi Molina introduced Quay, 18, a former YAP Youth Justice Program participant. He talked about facing complex challenges since the age of two when after his sister went to school with burns from touching an iron on the stove; the siblings were separated from their mother.

YAP is a national nonprofit it 34 states and Washington, DC. that partners with youth justice, child welfare, behavioral health, education, public safety, and other systems to deliver community-based services as a more effective alternative to youth incarceration, congregate residential treatment, and neighborhood violence.

Quay spoke about being in the child welfare system, placed with his grandmother for a short time and later with his father when he returned briefly from prison before another incarceration. After his grandmother’s death, he went to live with an aunt in South St. Petersburg, where at age 13, he committed an offense that landed him on probation.

“I was a kid; I didn’t know what to do. I was just trying to feed my family. We were going through it. We were struggling,” he said.

Quay said that the rules of his probation required that he be in the house at 6 p.m., and that he probation violated over and over because the restriction made playing outside with his friends and just having fun and being a kid impossible. He said he dropped out of school in ninth grade as his way of having time outdoors with his friends. Quay said his life changed when a judge moved his curfew to 11 p.m. and enrolled him in YAP.

“When I was 17, she introduced me to the YAP program; she’s the reason why I stopped violating because I had a talk with her, and she changed my curfew to 11,” Quay said.

Quay said being a part of the program helped him see his strengths and opened his eyes to new possibilities.

“I’d never been out of my neighborhood; so the first time I went to the beach was with them [his YAP Advocates]; and my first time doing any kind of critical activity like yoga, easing my mind; getting my mind off other stuff, I did that with the YAP program,” Quay added.

Board members also visited the Tampa YAP office where Program Director Felicia Wells and YAP Advocate Ishmell McKitchen briefed them on Stop Now And Plan or SNAP® and other community-based services they deliver to keep young people who might be at risk for youth justice system involvement on a positive path. The Tampa office administers SNAP® and other preventative programs as part of its partnership with the Florida Network of Youth and Family Services, which describes SNAP® on its website as a “front-end” resource to the Department of Juvenile Justice Office of Prevention, for at-risk youth ages 6-11 and their families.

Patricia Smith, a grandmother of a program participant, expressed her gratitude to YAP Advocate McKitchen for empowering her grandson with tools to focus on positivity.  “He still uses the principles of SNAP. It impacts his life; it helped us to be able to engage more.” She added that at times, her grandson even reminds her to employ the SNAP principles.

Following the office visit, the YAP board members visited a Tampa apartment complex where many of the Hillsborough County program participants live. The complex manager shared his appreciation for YAP and talked about many of the challenges faced by parents and children YAP serves.

YAP Southeast Regional Vice President LaVeisha Cummings, who arranged the visit and dinner program, also introduced Board members to Orange, Osceola, Seminole County team leaders — Program Director Seyny Dressler, Assistant Program Director Richard McFarland and Clinical Director Carmen Ziers.

Ziers shared details of YAP’s Behavioral Health services and Dressler and McFarland talked about services they deliver through a partnership with Embrace Families.

They provided an overview on their youth justice prevention and diversion, wraparound mentoring services, and a new Rapid Response program to support youth returning home from placement and their families.

Additionally, board members learned about other successful Pinellas Pasco YAP Youth Justice Program participants from Program Coordinator Ophilia Ciesicki.

Ending the briefings were inspirational closing remarks at the dinner from Quay.

“I actually love the YAP program and I just want to thank everybody for treating me like family, and hopefully one of these days, I’ll be a YAPper.”

Learn more about YAP at yapinc.org and follow the organization on Twitter @YAPInc.

Galax, Va. – Sixteen year-old Kayleen credits her parents and Twin Counties Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. in Virginia with helping her become a more well-rounded person.

Kayleen had been living with Chris and Brandy Waller for a year before the couple adopted her in May 2022. The Waller’s have two biological children and have fostered 10 young people in the past two years after they saw a need to help youth in their community. Kayleen and one of the other children they fostered received support from YAP Advocates after the couple learned about the program from their social worker.

YAP, a national nonprofit in 33 states and Washington, D.C., partners with youth justice, child welfare, behavioral health, and other systems to provide community-based services as a more effective alternative to youth incarceration and congregate residential placements. In recent years, YAP has also applied its Advocate model to provide services to help communities reduce neighborhood violence.

“I had never heard of YAP until I started fostering,” Brandy Waller said. “We were just very thankful that there was this program that could come in and take our foster children out for an hour to three hours a day to give them that quality time that we might not have been able to do. It helps them curb their anxiety and helps having someone there that just solely focused on them.”

YAP hires neighborhood-based Advocates who are trained to empower program participants to see their strengths while connecting them and their families to wraparound services that include educational, economic, and emotional tools to put their lives on a positive path and firm their foundation.

Through her social worker, Kayleen was paired with her YAP Advocate, Avery, who supported her and the couple that would adopt her. YAP’s main objective is to keep youth safely home. YAP Advocates are trained to provide services to program participants, their parents and families, and in cases where children are in foster care, their guardians, too.

“Our social worker will request a YAP Advocate if they feel like it’s needed,” said Waller who is a church children’s ministry director. “When our children did go with their Advocates their attitudes always improved. They could be having a bad day when they get home from school and then go with their Advocate and they come back and it would be like they reset.”

Waller added, “YAP is definitely a blessing. When I felt like I couldn’t give everyone that one-and-one time, YAP was there to help pick up where I couldn’t do everything.”

“My Advocate helped me not feel so stressful,” Kayleen, who is in the tenth grade, said. “We talk about things that I feel like talking about.”

Kayleen says she and Avery volunteered at an animal hospital, have been out to eat, took a trapeze class and to the pool. She is doing well in school, having earned A’s and one C in math, and is already making improvements to bring that grade up.

“We also went to this one bakery place and it was pretty cool,” Kayleen said. “I just like hanging out with her a lot.”

The Waller’s are thankful for the Advocates who have worked with their family, and for Emily Higgins, the Program Director of YAP Twin Counties, Va., whom Brandy says is “wonderful.”

Higgins says working with Kayleen and her adoptive family have been a “joy.”

“It was a privilege to see Kayleen flourish into an exceptional young lady by overcoming many challenges at a young age,” Higgins said. “She now uses her experiences to help support others in similar situations as they learn to overcome them. We are truly proud of Kayleen and the impact that she has made on all of us at YAP, and in the community, through her resilient, gentle spirit.”

YAP provides many individualized services, Higgins says, with the organization’s sole mission to impact youth and families by offering positive support like they’ve been able to do for the Waller’s.

“Teenagers need someone to just listen and as parents we don’t always want to listen; we want to lecture,” Waller added. “These YAP Advocates they listen, they don’t lecture like a parent would do. They’re very patient with people. I would recommend every teenager in the foster care system have an Advocate because they are hard, but they are so worth it. If you have that support system it makes things so much better.”

Kayleen is happy to be living with the Waller’s where she feels safe and loved, something she said she did not receive in other placements.

“I’ve really liked being here,” she said. “My other homes and placements weren’t the best. When I first came here I felt welcomed.”

Learn more about YAP by visiting yapinc.org. Follow the nonprofit on Twitter @YAPInc.

Tampa, Fla. — In an emotional moment, Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. Board Chair and Georgia State Rep. Teddy Reese thanked Jay Snyder for his service and his friendship. Sharing personal stories of their time working together, Reese announced that Snyder will be completing his term after 20 years of service as a YAP Board member. The announcement came during a dinner in Tampa, Fla., where the YAP Board of Directors held its quarterly meeting this month.

YAP is a national nonprofit in 34 states and Washington, D.C. that partners with youth justice, child welfare, behavioral health, and other systems to provide community-based alternatives to youth incarceration and congregate residential placements. In recent years, YAP has also implemented public safety initiatives in partnership with local governments to help curb neighborhood violence.

Snyder began his YAP board service in 2003. A U.S. Army Vietnam War veteran, he had a 20-year career in Pennsylvania state government, that included positions with the Governor’s office, Department of Community Affairs, Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and the Department of Welfare. He also served as Pennsylvania Commissioner for the Blind, President of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, and President of the National Council of State Agencies of Vocational Rehabilitation.

Snyder is perhaps best known for his work as an umpire at the U.S. Open, Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon. He also served as the United States Tennis Association Director of Officials, Chief Umpire for the U.S. Open Championships and Director of the U.S. Open.

In 2017, Snyder lost the love of his life, Jeanne, who was his pen pal when he was in Vietnam and became his girlfriend when he came home. Her death came two weeks after the couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary aboard the Pride of the Susquehanna.

Learn more about YAP at yapinc.org and follow the organization on Twitter @YAPInc.

Thanks to two enthusiastic young people – one from Haiti, the other from Romania – more global leaders will be introduced to effective community-based alternatives to youth incarceration and congregate residential care.

Alexandra Gheorghica and Michael Aristil are wrapping up 12-week Community Engagement Exchange (CEE) Program fellowships with Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. YAP is a U.S.-based national nonprofit in 33 states and the District of Columbia that delivers community-based services as an alternative to youth justice, child welfare and behavioral health congregate residential care, and neighborhood violence.

The CEE program is implemented by IREX in partnership with the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. YAP Director of International Development Diana Matteson, who oversees the YAP fellowship program, acknowledged the nonprofit’s New Brunswick Program Director Rebecca Escobar and Los Angeles Program Director Brandon Lamar for serving as onsite hosts for the two fellows.

“It was always my dream to participate in an exchange program, to be exposed to the resources, skills and leadership potential,” said New Brunswick-based fellow Michael, who was raised in Haiti by his single mother until her death in 2018. “I started applying for exchange programs for years and I had failed in my attempts. By persevering and continuing to prepare myself I finally got this opportunity.”

As part of his fellowship, working alongside YAP staffer Patricia Louis, Michael came to understand how the YAP wraparound services model works to help young people and their families see and nurture their strengths to make positive life changes.

Alexandra, who came to the U.S. from Romania, has been spending her time working with YAP’s Los Angeles-based youth justice Advocate team. In her home country, she focuses on youth participation and empowerment in her work with the Active Development Association and as part of the European Youth Village Programme, which offers youth in rural areas tools to bring change, strategically address local issues, and create new opportunities for other young people.

“During my work in the States, I observed similarities in the challenges American and especially the Black and Hispanic youth and youth with fewer opportunities face,” she said, adding that they are “often subjects of systematic discrimination, stereotypes, and not being considered a relevant voice in their communities.”

CEE is supported by U.S. tax dollars to promote global civic engagement and provide meaningful connections so that fellows’ home communities can benefit from global collaboration.

Michael hopes to introduce aspects of YAP’s youth and family wraparound services model to support students he works for the Heliotrope Foundation as part of afterschool tutoring programs in Haiti.

“In the afterschool program, we provide the kids with the opportunity to come, learn, and play in a fun and caring environment — psychosocial activities, creative games, art, cooking lessons etc.,” he said. “The tutoring program on the other hand is designed to help the elementary school students with homework and provide them with weekly classes to help them in the subjects they are having difficulty with — Haitian history and culture, French, Haitian creole, math, reading etc. — especially because political instability and violence constantly paralyzes the functioning of school there,” he added. For example, Michael explained how school was supposed to be resumed in Haiti since September 5th, but due to the conditions up until now they are closed.

“Part of the insights from YAP I’m looking ahead to incorporate in the programs I run are to better focus and assess the interests, strengths, and areas in which the kids need improvements and work in closer collaboration with their parents to help the kids set goals and work towards achieving them,” he said. “Working with kids on a large group setting was good in some ways, but I have learned an important perspective that’s worth trying.”

Alexandra recently completed university studies and will continue full-time with the Romania Active Development Organization. The opportunity will enable her to train a network of leaders in disadvantaged communities who can strengthen their communities with new tools.

Alexandra said she plans to bring the energy and motivation from her experience in the States to in the rural communities in her home country.

“I am looking forward to returning and continuing to develop myself as a mentor who can train youth workers in their own villages to bring opportunities to support their communities, apply for their own funding, and work with authorities” she added.

Michael is not certain how he will share his YAP knowledge when he returns to Haiti. But he is hopeful, as he has been for years, starting each day with his morning ritual of listening to Mariah Carey singing, When You Believe.

“Not only should we raise the hope of the kids, I also believe we should create more places where youth throughout the country can find the support they need to realize their potential and to help them advocate for themselves,” he said.

Learn more about YAP at www.YAPInc.org and follow the nonprofit on Twitter @YAPInc.

Research for this (book, article, video, etc.) was supported in part by the Community Engagement Exchange Program, a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the United States Department of State, implemented by IREX. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the Community Engagement Exchange Program, the U.S. Department of State, or IREX.