The Challenge
Young people who experience poverty or who live in disadvantaged communities are at increased risk for gun violence involvement and/or exposure. Yet recruiting young people into violence prevention programming remains a challenge for many nonprofits across the city. The lack of youth involvement in the design, development, and implementation of such programming remains a significant stumbling block to robust participation and engagement rates.
The Project
Through this Emerging Leader Fellowship, Aquilla Walker will work with The Nonprofit Center at La Salle University to address organizations’ youth recruiting challenges by supporting the development of programming that truly meets the needs of the next generation. The Nonprofit Center intends to pay youth to engage in program design at community organizations that are focused on gun violence prevention and reduction. Effective youth programming, with high participation and engagement rates, will improve youth outcomes and build the leadership of young people driving change in their own communities.
Specifically, this Fellowship will enable Aquilla to:
- Convene a community council of youth-led/focused organizations, anti-gun violence organizations, and young people to assist in the creation of a youth program design curriculum.
- Recruit, train, and connect youth designers with anti-gun violence organizations, who together will redesign an existing program/service, create a new program/service, or develop a program marketing strategy.
- Assess the program by leading a participatory session with the design council, youth, and organizations from cohort one, with the goal of reviewing and refining the curriculum and process for a second cohort of participants.
- Develop a youth-led gun violence prevention program design toolkit to be shared with other organizations interested in engaging in youth-led design programming.
