Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program

In which borough should your idea take place? Queens

Do you have a specific neighborhood(s) in mind?

This could be useful in many communities

Which audience(s) does your idea help? Select as many as apply.

Youth

Parents

Justice impacted individuals

Limited English proficient individuals

Low income individuals

Black, Indigenous, and POC

Immigrants and/or migrants

Public housing residents

Describe the challenge you want to address:

To combat the negative forces affecting some of our youngest community members (racism, violence, injustice). “The young people of the world” have “a reservoir of capacity to transform society waiting to be tapped.” —Baha'u'llah

Describe your idea and approach to address the challenge:

To develop a program inspired by The Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program (JYSEP), or partnering with the JYSEP, which engages teens and young adults as mentors for their younger peers, ages 11-15. Mentors empower junior youth to develop strong moral reasoning, to resist negative social forces, to express themselves with eloquence, and to work together for a better world.

A global program implemented at the grassroots level, JYSEP aids junior youth from diverse backgrounds to navigate the transition from childhood to adulthood through spiritual empowerment—nurturing within young people inherent spiritual qualities of kindness, justice, honesty, and generosity. In developing their character at this critical juncture of their lives, they become protagonists of positive change.
JYSEP brings together participants and volunteers from diverse cultural and faith backgrounds. Inspired by teachings of the Baha'i Faith, its content explores universal themes of the importance of education, the elimination of prejudice, and the need for building united communities without reference to any particular religion. The program is open to people of all backgrounds and focuses on spiritual and moral concepts universal to all the world's great religions, traditions and philosophies.
‍
The Northeast Regional Training Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, sponsors junior youth groups and other grassroots educational programs in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
http://northeastjysep.org/

Write the zipcode that best represents your New York City community:

11374