YMCA News:Los Alamos Teen Center is hosting an informational meeting for Y Global Teens 5:30-6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 22.
For both parents and teens, this meeting will offer an opportunity for anyone interested to ask/answer questions, and learn some of our basic program information and timelines/dates for travel and other activities.
Y Global Teens is a leadership development and service learning program that engages teenagers ages 14-19 in a year-long empowering international experience culminating with a 10 day to 2 1/2 week service abroad experience. The program includes deep personal growth and discovery, cultural travel, meaningful service, home stay experiences, and interaction with teens from around the globe.
The need to understand the intricacies and interdependencies of the world’s many cultures, communities and nations has never been more important. Beginning in 1996, Y Global Teens has provided more over 1000 young people a deepened sense of the social issues impacting our world and methods for positively contributing to our global community.
Current Teen Center members have already begun brainstorming with our newly-forming Global Teens program; over the next weeks and months, the group will collectively come up with multiple activity and fundraising ideas to plan and implement throughout the rest of 2016 and into 2017. Global Teen program goals are to engage with meaningful service projects here in Los Alamos throughout the year, culminating in a trip to Zambia & Botswana during the summer of 2017.
“Growing up as a global nomad, I feel grateful for the opportunities I had as a child and teen to expand my perspective and to learn more about myself through interactions with and explorations of a myriad cultures, places and people,” explains Sylvan Argo, Los Alamos Teen Center Director. “Travel and meaningful connections and interactions in other cultures allows us all to grow – and I am trilled to help facilitate opportunities for our teens to learn about themselves and explore what our community and our local culture is all about – while at the same time expanding their world view and appreciation for different cultures, places, people.”
A large part of the program includes planning and implementing fundraising events and activities, as well as conducting local service projects in the Los Alamos and northern New Mexico area. Los Alamos Teen Center is looking for adult mentors as well as project partners that can help connect teens to opportunities where they can explore socio-cultural and environmental issues locally, and integrate and apply their learning as they engage with service projects internationally.
Global teens will meet a couple times a month on a regular basis, with more workshop sessions, planning meetings and events as the year goes on and the teens come up with more ideas for fundraising and service projects.
Additionally, we are building a blog/web presence, and are looking for creative teens to help us send some video blogs and other messages to teens at Ys around the world.
If you’d like to be a part of the Global Teens program or want to share your ideas for expanding teen opportunities in our community, please contact Sylvan Argo, Los Alamos Teen Center Director, at sargo@laymca.org or call the Teen Center at 505.695.7415.