Youth Leadership and Civic Activism Project

The Center for Applied Research and Technical Assistance, Inc.

A member of the literacy group presenting.

Students from the second year giving their final presentations

Members of the homelessness group with their site supervisor Mr. Martin

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Members of the homelessness and teen pregnancy group

A member of the literacy group presenting.

The Youth Leadership and Civic Activism Project

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Youth Activism Web sites

The Youth Leadership and Civic Activism Project (YLCAP) is an innovative high school curriculum, developed by CARTA, which combines participatory action research, leadership development, and community organizing techniques to teach young people to become community activists. This school-wide course curriculum was implemented at the Baltimore Freedom Academy (BFA) during the 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 school years. After the second year of implementation, the YLCAP ended as a CARTA-led course. CARTA is currently working to further develop and finalize the curriculum in order to make it available for other schools and organizations working with adolescents and young adults.

BFA's philosophy is that education should be a collaborative effort between teachers, administrators, community members, students, and their families.

To learn more about BFA, click the image below.

The Curriculum:

The curriculum is divided into two semesters, Learning and Action.

In the first semester students learn core concepts of leadership, organizing, civic activism, and participatory action research. Students also work in groups to identify important social issues affecting both themselves and their community.

In the second semester, each student completes an internship at a local organization dedicated to addressing the identified issues from the first semester. Students are required to create photo essays and collect data surrounding their issues using various research method techniques that include: literature reviews, interviewing, survey construction and implementation, and data analysis.

At the completion of the YLCAP, students are required to design action plans for change and present them along with their topic, internship experience, results from their data collection, and overall thoughts about the class in a final presentation.

CARTA would like to acknowledge Janis Rodriquez for her assistance with the design elements found on the YLCAP pages.