Neighborhood Learning Community
The West Side Neighborhood Learning Community (NLC) is a network of people and organizations working together to strengthen learning opportunities for young people on the West Side of St. Paul, Minnesota. The University of Minnesota’s Center for Democracy and Citizenship is an advisor and lead partner.
Thursday, Feb 14, 2008
These youth apprenticeships have civic impact
Youth (yooth) - a set of thoughtful, passionate leaders who come to the table with curiosity and power, with curiosity and power to be unleashed
Apprenticeship (ə-prěn'tĭs-shĭp) - relationship between youth and mentor, from which the youth derives skills, guidance, and challenge, and the mentor derives renewed outlook, meaning, and challenge
Project (prŏj'ěkt') – a grand connection that yields great change
Youth are powerful agents of change. This summer, 30 young people ages 14 to 19 will be connecting to the West Side neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, and impacting the way it works and grows.
They’ll engage in this process through the Youth Apprenticeship Project (YAP), a program initiated by the Neighborhood Learning Community.
Getting around to learning is a priority in this city
More than five years ago, community organizations and parks and recreation workers in St. Paul, Minn., began thinking of ways to bring kids to places where they could learn and socialize with one another. They imagined - and got funding for - a free bus that would run after school and during the summer, connecting the library to a neighborhood landmark, with stops in between at schools, parks, community and recreation centers, and a large housing complex. Keeping young people connected to other people and to learning opportunities is the goal of the Neighborhood Learning Community, a coalition of neighborhood organizations, local government, and residents working together to ensure that children grow up as successful, engaged citizens.
The West Side Circulator worked so well in its first few years, that staff in the mayor's office secured private funding for another circulator on the city's East Side last summer, and the city of Minneapolis is looking at how they can create circulators in their neighborhoods. Read - or listen - to a Feb. 11 report on the circulator by Minnesota Public Radio.
Semyia Navarro, 8, of St. Paul is one of about 80 kids who ride the West Side circulator bus every day to afterschool programs in the neighborhood. (MPR Photo/Laura Yuen)
Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008
Lights, camera, youth action!
On a blistering hot afternoon last summer, five young people from the West Side neighorhood of St. Paul, Minnesota, sat down with film makers from the St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN) to begin a week-long session of documentary film making. The goal was to learn, plan, and produce two short documentary films about the West Side community.
The youth were a part of an All Around the Neighborhood (AATN) youth leadership initiative called West Side Youth Guides. West Side Youth Guides is a leadership and mentorship program for kids in grades 6 to 8 who go to school or live on the West Side neighborhood. With coaching by a community member, an Urban 4H youth worker, and myself, youth guides practice their leadership and mentorship skills through facilitating, mentoring, and working with younger children and adults at AATN day camps.
Thursday, Jan 17, 2008
Top 7 of 2007
Each time we hear from our partners and colleagues, we’re energized by your commitment and by what you can teach about doing the work of democracy. As we begin a new year, we decided to look back at our work close to home, and name some of the other things that gave us energy and taught us powerful lessons.
Voices of Hope: The Story of the Jane Addams School
At the Humphrey Center one evening in April, volunteers who looked like an impossibly diverse group of secret agents wore headsets and spoke into small microphones. They were providing simultaneous interpretation in Hmong, Somali and Spanish for many of the more than 100 people listening to authors read from their work in Voices of Hope: The Story of the Jane Addams School (another interpreter signed American Sign Language). This book launch was a celebration of the democratic work and learning of Jane Addams School participants – including new immigrants of all ages – over the past 10 years. Twelve authors contributed to the book, which was edited by Nan Kari and Nan Skelton.
Friday, Nov 30, 2007
Recommended reading: Why Community Matters
Nicholas Longo, an alumnus of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and former staff member of the CDC, recently published a book, Why Community Matters: Connecting Education with Civic Life. In the book Longo argues that civic education does not just happen in schools, but rather in the wider community. As children grow, education should be connected to civic life happening in the community around them.
We're all reading it and highly recommend it.
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