New Wiki Articles on Dropout Projects, Mentoring, and Youth Engagement

There is a lot happening on the wiki this week with the addition of one of our Civic Change Award finalists and a number of new posts and edits.  Here's the latest:

* The Forum for Youth Investment recently added an article about their latest publication,   Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change.  They took a very sensible approach in their first post by using a topic title (Youth Engagement) that was fairly general in nature so that others could add to it.

* Dan Bassill, founder of Tutor/Mentor Connection and fellow blogger, continues to build a in impressive mentoring section on the Learning to Finish wiki.  His latest addition looks at organizing your efforts around annual events on the school calendar.  Dan also continues to share what he knows in the section on designing a mentoring program.  The sheer volume of what Dan produces for his own website and blog as well as our wiki is amazing, he is truly helping write the book on how communities can direct their efforts through tutoring and mentoring programs.

* The Middle School Archive Project is a cool idea that any school can implement, the folks at StudentMotivation.org recently added to their entry on the project and it is well worth taking a look.

If you are new to the wiki but would like to join in the conversation then take a look at the new tutorial or contact us for assistance.  The offer of assistance runs until the middle of August so interested parties have less than a month to avail themselves of this offer!
 

Comments

[Dan Bassill]

In the Act Now section of the wiki are many strategies that business, churches, colleges and social networks could adopt to increase the number of people who are involved in helping kids stay in school and move to jobs and careers. The link is http://www.learningtofinish.org/doku.php?id=act_now

The challenge we have is turning this from a "wish list" into actions taken by a growing number of people.

School starts in a few weeks. This means a primary action that businesses, media, blogers, etc. can take is to write about ways and places volunteers and donors can connect with kids, right now, as school is getting started.

If enough people take this action, more kids will be able to connect with tutors, mentors and well-organized programs. For some kids this could mean the difference between joining a gang that models negative aspirations, or a tutor/mentor program modeling positive choices. This can meam a difference of life or death for some kids.

Act now. Read the list of suggestions. Share them with your co-workers, your social network and alumni group, or your church leaders.

Then do something between now and September 15 that results in more visibility for volunteer based organizations in your community, and througout the country.

This opportunity won't be available for another year, when schools starts in 2008-09.

[Term paper]

Nice blog, its great article informative post, thanks for sharing it. Thanks for the information!