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The Student Leadership Initiative is a unique program to develop and promote student voices within the community. Each year, selected students from across the nation engage in an eight-month project arising from an environmental or social
justice issue. Students use social media to discuss and build programs that educate and engage their schools and communities in focused social action. Students capture their success in presentations, which they share at a four-day conference. Students visit with local experts, get exposure to a new environment and engage in academic discourse with peers they have met on-line. In recent years students have replanted gardens and greenery around homes and churches in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, studied diversity in New York City, and traveled to rural Tarboro, N.C., to discuss the relationship of habitat and humanity. They have climbed through the snow at 10,000 feet in Estes Park, Colo. to understand the meaning of pristine environment, and seen the impact of industrial waste on the Reedy River in Greenville, S.C. The experience improves literacy and promotes college readiness skills. Students learn to be competent writers and deeply engaged readers, and also improve their research and organization skills. They become spokespeople for the school community, develop confidence and start to view themselves as change agents. Schools wishing to participate, register in September. Advisors are invited into MCNC’s on-line community to plan. Students are selected in October or November and explore themes through the fall, then in January they join the on-line community for forums and cross-school projects supporting their local work. The conference takes place in late April or early May.
What Makes a Healthy Community? 2012-2013
To find out more about Student Leadership Initiative and how you can participate contact us.
