YEA Blog

S.O.S.! Save Our Summer!

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:34:00 GMT

The Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) is vital to the youth of this city. SYEP provides jobs to thousands of Washington, D.C. youth and adults. Youth gain professional development, make friends, earn money and have positive summer experiences.

AND research shows that youth employment lowers teen drug addiction, pregnancy and crime rates!

How can you help?

Sign the petition!

Become a fan of the S.O.S. Save Our Summer! Facebook Page

Join the YEA Facebook Group!

And come out to the Youth Hearing on Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 10:00 am in the John A. Wilson Building (1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, 5th Floor Chamber; Enter on D street side of the building)

Contact City Council Chair Vincent Gray and your City Council Representative, tell them to SAVE OUR SUMMER!

For more information, call YEA: 202.758.2674

"Only a Fraction of What I Was Supposed to be Paid"

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:53:00 GMT

Good afternoon. My name is Margaret Parker and for the past summer I was employed by the Summer Youth Employment program. During this time I was assigned to The Youth Education Alliance though I requested to work with children.

After my first visit to 625 H Street, to turn in my registration form, there was no sign of progress for me as far as obtaining my work site or debit card. Previously I was employed by the Youth Education Alliance, in the fall, doing youth advocacy, and my supervisor told me that we were going to become a summer site and that he would request me. Though this was to occur, when I went back to H Street they still gave me another site until my supervisor went down there himself and repeated the necessary procedures to request me.

Even then after a long unnecessary wait I still had not obtained my debit card to get paid. I couldn’t get any answers from the visibly angry and overwhelmed staff.

So eventually, after two and a half weeks, me and some of my summer youth coworkers had to take a day off of work to go down to H street to get the debit card, and even still a couple of my coworkers still didn’t get their cards that day and had to wait for a longer period of time. In addition to that on the third pay[day], I only received a fraction of what I was supposed to be paid and had to wait three days after the scheduled pay day to receive the correct amount that I was to be paid.

Through out the summer I saw these episodes happen to many of my friends and coworkers. Only because one of my coworkers had a family member working on the inside and because my supervisor was consistently calling and visiting H Street were we able to accomplish the things that we needed.

Though I gathered a lot of information and had a lot of fun at my worksite, the whole process was frustrating for the youth and the providers.

My suggestions, which are being strongly advised, are that there should be more staff workers at the orientation sites and have more SYEP (summer youth employment) centers across the city with workers that are able to effectively advise callers and walk-ins with questions, as well as staff trained to deal with large groups of people for long periods of time, and more organization within the payroll area.

Thank You.

"Better and Early Communication"

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:24:00 GMT

Hello, my name is Ayana Sutton and I work with Youth Education Alliance. I attend Dunbar Senior High School which is located in Ward 5.

My experience with the Summer Youth Employment Program was positive despite summer youth employment confusion.The providers were still able to give a quality experience.

My experience became kind of frustrating when my money wasn't on my card, being underpaid, not knowing where to go forinformation, and orientation being chaotic and nothing still being able to get accomplished.

My recommendations is that:

There need to be better and early communication about orientations, better customer services and youth friendly staff--and positive youth development

10 Reasons Why DCPS Students Should Join YEA

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:25:00 GMT

I bet that every 3 out of 4 students that are in high school don’t even know that there's a Student's Bill of Rights. You know how I know? I know because, I was one. But by getting myself involved I now know that I have say so. Some of the problems that go on in our school systems that affect students are:

Some of the teachers that are put into DCPS that are under qualified;
The fact that we as students don’t have clean facilities (and the effect of that is STAPH--You do remember that don’t you?);
And bad lunches.

How in the world are students suppose to learn in environments like that. And if you think that’s all, think again.

In certain schools the bath rooms are always out of order, the paint on the walls are all peeled up, the classes are over crowed and noisy, there are spots where the ceilings leak, and, last by not least, there always problems with air. If its not too hot, its too cold, and most of the time its because of a boiler problem.

So if I have to give you any more proof to why YEA is worth joining then you must be perfectly fine with the environment you’re in. But if you’re not, then get off your butt and join YEA!!!!!!!!!!!.

Stop Counselor Overload

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 06:45:00 GMT

In certain cases, students do not get the support they need at all. Last year at Anacostia SHS we had a shortage of guidance counselors. We had one guidance counselor to support about 900 students. Half of the time he was too busy to help some of the students who really needed his assistance. This made people feel that their problems were not as important to him as others. Our counselor was responsible for everything in our school.

In addition to counseling, he did hall monitor duty and he sometimes did cafeteria duty. This was confusing when I had to have my schedule changed because I needed him to change it. This situation not only affected the students, it also affected some of the teachers. One of the teachers was asked to do administrative duty in addition to his regular duties. As you can imagine this was very stressful to us all, especially when we found out that a teacher would have to change our schedules.

At the Youth Education Alliance, we currently have a campaign to get more guidance counselors for our schools. Counselors can have a lasting impact on how our life turns out. We need them to succeed. To go through school without them is to rob us of our learning experience.

March for Immigrant Rights

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 09:18:00 GMT

I think the march was very necessary. It was about 200,000 people all together. We held up signs and flags to show exactly how we feel about immigrants getting their citizenship. I think our voice was heard and the march was very effective.

America is made of immigrants. Without immigrants, America would not be the same. The only true Americans in this country are Native Americans. I am an immigrant, you’re an immigrant, the President’s an immigrant and I believe that if 12 million immigrants have to go back to their country, then all immigrants should have to do the same.

Overall, I think that immigrants are completely necessary in this country. It’s not possible for this country to be run without immigrants. There are lots of jobs that immigrants do that other people don’t want to do. I will stand up for them until justice is served.

Immigrants came from Europe hundreds of years ago and had their way with this land and the Native Americans. Who are you to persecute immigrants that come to America today to work and feed their families?

DCPS students on Oprah show

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 07:30:00 GMT

I am a youth organizer for the Youth Education Alliance. We worked in partnership with Critical Exposure to take pictures of our school. Critical Exposure supplied a group of DCPS students with cameras and taught us about documentary photography. Then we took pictures of our schools and used them for display at the School Modernization Rally.

I’m proud to have been on the Oprah show. I feel as if I got my point across to the rest of the world; it makes my job worthwhile. A lot of people I know saw the show and, said “I saw you on Oprah,” so it was pretty exciting. I feel like a celebrity.

The fact that there are very poor schools is a serious issue. According to the American Youth Policy Forum, a high school dropout earns $10,000 less per year than a high school graduate. Over a lifetime, the graduate will earn a million dollars more than the dropout. Even students that stay in school are not being prepared enough. "Of kids who are going to college, more than 40 percent are doing remedial work," says Melinda Gates, who was on the Oprah show talking about education.

In the future, the media should do more for our schools by going in and talking to students and looking at the conditions of schools. I hope this is the start of a new beginning for under-funded schools across the nation.