Every Thursday evening, the High School Youth Leadership Council meets to help develop future leaders in Montezuma County.
The program takes place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Cortez Cultural Center and helps teach students leadership skills while providing dinner and activities such as field trip and community projects.
The nonprofit has run for about 15 years, according to Angela Adams, a project organizer.
“SCYC Leadership Council has been happening for about 15 years, and it’s morphed,” Adams told The Journal. “It’s always been a youth-driven program where young people can tell us what they’re interested in learning and how they would like to serve the community, and we try to make that happen.”
In the past three years, the program has utilized a curriculum called “Youth Roots Philanthropic Project.” Students are encouraged to identify issues that affect young people in Montezuma County, and then they began implementing strategies and activities to help combat the issues.
“Then we raise money around that and community awareness, and then make a grant,” Adams said. “Local nonprofits could apply for the grant, and the Youth Leadership Council would decide who was awarded the funds. It was an awesome endeavor.”
Now, the program is doing things a little differently.
“It’s going to be a mix of what we used to do and what we’ve done for the last few years,” Adams said. “It used to be like, ‘What do y’all want to know about?’ And then they would tell us and we would make a meeting around it. It could be anything from adulting stuff to budgeting to mindfulness or whatever they’re interested in.”
This year, the program will mix topics that students want to learn about, and identify a major youth issue in the county.
“Then we’re going to make either a community service project or an awareness campaign or an event around said topic, and that’ll be an ongoing group project,” Adams said.
In recent years, Adams said they’ve had about 17 members, and eight to 12 attend each meeting.
“It’s a leadership development program, and we’re hoping that they learn more about themselves and others, grow in self-confidence and their leadership abilities, and then get involved in this community to make a positive change,” Adams said.
To join, contact Adams or show up at the designated meeting time and place. Adams said the meeting room is upstairs and around the back of the Cortez Cultural Center, which has donated the space.
“You come as often as you can, and if you have theater or sports or whatever, you don’t have to come then,” Adams said. “They learn about themselves and the other people and team building and how to make a decisions as a group and that kind of thing.”
More information is available online at www.scyclistens.com or by contacting Adams at (970) 480-7293 or aadams@scyclistens.org.
