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Delta State to host Youth-In-Action workshop

By July 23, 2010General

Delta State University will host a workshop, “Delta Youth-In-Action: Engagement and Evaluation for Community Change,” Thursday, June 1 through Saturday, June 3. Both innovative in format and spirit, the workshop will bring together youth in the tri-state Delta region in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

“This three day, two-night workshop will strengthen the civic engagement and leadership development of young people in Delta communities,” Dr. Myrtis Tabb, Senior Administrator of Special Projects at Delta State University maintained. 

Barry Checkoway, University of Michigan, added “The workshop will provide young people with hands-on skills for using evaluation as a tool for community change.” 

Seven teams from across the tri-state Delta region will be selected to participate in the workshop.  Youth teams will bring project ideas and leave with plans to implement and evaluate the selected project in their community.  Each team will be composed of three to four high school sophomores and juniors (entering Fall 2006) and an adult advisor who will work together and are motivated to create positive change in their community. 

The workshop is a collaboration between the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the University of Michigan’s School of Social Work’s Program for Youth and Community and Delta State University’s Mid-South Delta Leaders program. 

“Delta State is excited about this unique collaboration and is pleased to host the innovative workshop this summer,” Tabb continued. 

Checkoway concurred, “We are excited about this partnership with Delta State University and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and look forward to working with young leaders from across the region.” 

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 “to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.”  Its programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community, and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive, and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions, and healthy communities.

For more information on the program, please call or email Christy Montesi, Workshop Coordinator, at (662) 846-4336 or cmontesi@deltastate.edu.