Dear friend and supporter,
YPP 2010 Highlights
YPP National
YPP Co-founder Omo Moses was recognized as a Huffington Post Greatest Person of the Day.
YPP received a $1.1 million National Science Foundation ITEST grant to develop new programs in 4 YPP sites that engage young people in activities that “Bridge Math Literacy and Digital Media Creation”.
YPP has begun to work with the Hot 8 Brass Band and Black Men of Labor to establish a YPP site in New Orleans, LA that combines, math, music, media and movement.
Greater Boston YPP
YPP Greater Boston was able to take 10 high school students and 4 college students along with staff to the 50th SNCC Anniversary Conference in Raleigh North Carolina.
Jacqueline Suarez and Selledia Ball were on the Youth Panel at the Creating a Balance in an Unjust World Math and Social Justice Conference in October in Brooklyn, NY at Long Island University.
YPP Greater Boston has started a new Algebra 1 Labs program for 8th grade students at the Young Achievers school in Mattapan. This fall we completed the training for 6 high school students, facilitated by YPP trainer Quinn Soto, in preparation for workshops with 8th grade students in the winter and spring.
YPP in partnership with local Boston area youth organizations (Boston Student Advisory Council, Boston-Area Youth Organizing Project, La Sociedad Latina, Origination, Young Collaborative, and Hyde Square Task force) hosted the Department of Education’s National Youth Listening Tour in Boston. Over 100 young people and adults from across the city attended to discuss what it would take for schools, communities, parents and children to reach Obama’s 2020 goals for education.
Chicago YPP
We co-sponsored The Social Justice Student Expo where YPP teens attended youth-led workshops and created poster-board presentations on issues that pertained to them. Four staff and four MLWs attended the SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference where they interacted with YPP members from across the network, Civil Rights veterans, and youth interested in making a change today. (Spring 2010)
This year we continued our partnership with Janet Beisinger at the University of Illinois Chicago to pilot “Crypto Club” materials to introduce math and cryptography to students. The work was strong and continues to expand; the MLWs are thinking outside the box and adding their own input to the curriculum.
Our MLWs had a successful Summer Celebration where they performed and expressed positive messages through music, poem, and dance, poster-boards, and gave personal testimonies about the work. All of the outreach sites shared their work through activity booths. (Summer 2010)
We expanded our Algebra Labs program to 7 schools in the Woodlawn Promise Zone, and hosted 3 mini-math bashes across the city where children, teens, parents, and community members came together to celebrate MATH! (Fall 2010)
Jackson YPP
YPP had spring math literacy outreach sessions in Shaw, MS, and in Jackson at Operation Shoestring, Rowan/Galloway Schools, Tisdale Library, and the Boys and Girls Club on Sykes road. A total of 4 trainers and 10-12 math literacy workers conducted these sessions for 16 weeks. The fall outreach sessions were primarily in Jackson at the same sites as above. (Spring/Summer/Fall 2010)
YPP participated and facilitated in the 50th Annual Mississippi Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement Conference in Jackson, MS. Staff and students had a fishbowl conversation with the veterans and led several breakout sessions. YPP MS also traveled to Raleigh, NC with a bus of students, staff, and community members for the SNCC 50th anniversary. (Spring 2010)
YPP served as the official host of the southern regional gathering for the Alliance for Educational Justice to discuss education and education policy at the federal level. A mix of organizations including the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, and the Mid Town association of Jackson contributed to shaping a solid list of educational expectations from people in MS.
As part of our focus on Black Men and Boys we held a film screening for the film “Men to Boys” in collaboration with several local organizations including United Way, Children’s Defense Fund and others. Our media work in the coming months will capture local stories from black males around the subject matter of the film. We also partnered in the film screening of “Beyond the Bricks”, a film project and national community engagement campaign to promote solutions for one of America’s critical problems in education: the consistently low performance of black males in school.
We participated in the national Youthline Mapping Project. YPP MLW are mapping the resources available to them block by block in the City of Jackson. As they go out into their communities they are becoming comfortable engaging strangers, talking about the mapping project and their work at YPP. Students are beginning to develop a broader understanding of the landscape they live in and the challenges and opportunities that young people have to develop and thrive.
YPP hosted 2 summer interns from Princeton University who helped to develop and facilitate workshops with Lead Organizer Albert Sykes and YPP students that engaged the broader YPP community in making connections between local and regional education policy and their education experiences. They also worked on a proposal for Communities for Public Education Reform, which has been awarded. (Summer 2010)
We won a $5,000 donation from Michael Baisden for our work mentoring young people. A concert featuring local musical artists, Ecklectik Soul, was held at the historical Alamo Theater in downtown Jackson, and part of the proceeds were donated to YPP.
Los Angeles YPP
YPP held a Math Mania at Academia Avance Charter School for 200 6th grade students who participated in math puzzles and table games, and a Flagway championship. The winners received a Chuck-E-Cheese pizza party and a YPP trophy. (May 2010)
YPP took 4 students from Academia Avance and 2 Franklin High School students to San Francisco to work with Algebra Project teacher Marcus Hung and math coach Ann Lyon to train 60 students in the YPP program and help design YPP outreach for Algebra Project students. They also lead a workshop for the Bay Area Circle for Teachers (BACT). 30 math teachers participated in a 3 hour workshop where we played and discussed Flagway, YPP, and the Algebra Project. The students were housed at Berkeley University. (June 2010)
YPP MLWs participated in a NASA training to learn NASA curriculum activities. YPP trained 20 Algebra Project students at Franklin High School in the Flagway curriculum, NASA math and science workshops as well as YPP leadership and team building skills. (Summer 2010)
Ann Arbor YPP (Southeast Michigan)
This year we are focusing on sustainability rather than growth in three main regions: Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti), the City of Flint, and Wayne County. The most important aspect of our work has been making sure our relationships are fortified in the communities in order to ensure sustainability. The continued support of the University of Michigan (Office of the Provost, and College of Literature, Science, & the Arts) has been a key solid resource to allow us to continue our work.
Three sites have been at work since September 2010: Arrowwood Hills Community Center and Huron High School (a new site) in Ann Arbor, as well as Lincoln High School in Ypsilanti. There is a new collaboration with the Algebra Project at Ypsilanti High School where YPP is working with UM School of Education. Thanks to collaboration with Eastern Michigan University’s GEAR-UP and Bright Futures program, we will have sites up and running again by January 2011 at Willow Run High School and Ypsilanti High School (technically 2 different sites going on there!) in Ypsilanti, in addition to Wayne-Memorial High School in Wayne.
The city of Flint is a new project started by University of Michigan - Flint faculty Matt Wyneken, Becky Pettengill, and Clara Blakely. Currently, the project involves gathering funds to start the Young People’s Project at all of the Flint Public Schools. This is an exciting project that could offer insight into what steps have to be accomplished for something similar in Detroit.
In Detroit one of the University of Michigan GEAR-UP and YPP sites, Cooley High School, closed down alongside the hundreds of Detroit Public Schools that were closed. Currently, YPP volunteers are attending once a week with students at Cesar Chavez Academy High School and now Cody High School (a new site) thanks to UM students taking Project Community, a Sociology 389 course offered at the University where students are required to volunteer four hours a week for YPP.
At Lincoln High School in Ypsilanti 4 returning MLWs from the 2009-10 academic year wanted to keep YPP at their school even though the previous support and funding no longer exists for the 2010-11 year. These students were able to recruit 20 students that were not previously involved with YPP. This amount is more than all of our current Ann Arbor sites combined. The returning MLWs have taken the idea to train the new MLWs in the Flagway Module since they already know how to teach it.
Brooklyn YPP
In May, YPP Brooklyn successfully completed its pilot year of programming. During the pilot, 12 Freshmen AP Cohort students from Boys and Girls HS in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, were training to become Math Literacy Workers. Once trained these freshmen completed over 30 hours of outreach workshops for forty 3-4 graders at the local PS21: Crispus Attucks Elementary School.
Mansfield YPP (Ohio)
MLWs have begun to make YPP their own. They make most of the decisions about the Outreach schedule. Deonte Leadingham suggested that some of the MLWs are ready to take on more responsibilities, so he suggested that they come to the CMLWs meetings and begin to run the planning sessions. Our site is now working with 4 - 5 grade students and some are returning students. We are planning a Flagway tournament with all the elementary schools. We want to start by going to the schools and having a "Math Night" to teach them Flagway, then by the end of the year they will be ready to have a tournament.
El Dorado YPP (Southern Illinois)
Students in Eldorado completed their first YPP outreach session where 5 MLWs performed 10 weekly 115 minute workshops with more than 40 elementary and junior high school students. We laughed, we cried, we struggled, and we survived. We stand today miles ahead of where we started and many times better than we were yesterday. For the final report of the session students were asked to highlight something they have learned from another MLW or YPP staff member, “I have learned from YPP staff, that math can be fun”, Amy-Jo Frailey. “I have learned from YPP staff, that you should always be yourself and not worry about what other people say about you. You should love yourself.” Holiday Fulton. MLWs are currently involved in recruitment of MLWs and CMLWs to enhance programming for the next YPP session.
YPP in the Media
Omo Moses:
http://www.thenation.com/article/tribe-sncc
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51225
http://www.theroot.com/views/children-sncc?page=0,1
YPP Jackson:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/10/20/26649/, http://www.princeton.edu/pace/undergraduate/internships/opportunities/caas-internships/ypp/
List of Non Profits Work: Black Men and Boys PDF
YPP Eldorado:
http://vimeo.com/14219555
YPP Ann Arbor:
http://www.michigandaily.com/content/brittany-smith-ypp-activists
Outstanding YPP Students
or if you prefer you may also use
