A Promising Future Competitors

Founded in 2004, the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) is a New Orleans-based non-profit organization that annually serves over 900 young people and their families. Since our inception, we have grown from a small organization focused on supporting formerly incarcerated youth to the most comprehensive nonprofit in Greater New Orleans providing services to underserved young people and their families. YEP now has locations in five neighborhoods in the Greater New Orleans region and operates four core programs: YEP Educates, YEP Enriches, YEP Mentors, and YEP Works. YEP’s mission is to engage underserved young people through community-based education, mentoring, enrichment, and employment readiness programs to help them develop skills and strengthen ties to family and community. Through YEP’s core programs, we address key barriers that impede young people from succeeding. Specifically, YEP addresses overarching challenges that include illiteracy, poverty and crime. YEP’s continuum of effective services attacks the root causes of these social ills and provides young people with the supports and skills they need to succeed in school and in their communities. For more information visit our website: www.youthempowermentproject.org and follow us on social media: @yepnola

The Youth Connection (TYC) works to make Detroit a safe and positive community to raise children by improving youth health and safety factors. TYC does this through advocacy, increased investment, by establishing national and community-wide partnerships and by achieving positive, measurable outcomes. The Youth Connection Career Academies (TYCCA) is a collaboration with Detroit Public Schools (DPS), the Detroit Fire, EMS, Police and Water Departments, Henry Ford Health System, Homeland Security and Wayne County Community College District. Through its partnerships with the business community, TYCCA exposes and trains youth for careers in public safety, service, skilled trades, healthcare, aerospace technology and other fields. TYCCA is but one of TYC's programs that guide youth toward a positive, productive and successful future. An example of the effectiveness of TYC's programs is the graduation rate of youth in its programs. Last year, 12th grade students achieved an 83% graduation rate in June with the remaining students graduating in August. This success occurred in a public school district averaging between 25% and 60% graduation rates depending on the source of the data. Additionally, 89% of TYC's graduates entered college or were hired into a career opportunity!!

Tomorrow’s Youth Organization (TYO) is an American, non-governmental organization. Founded in 2008, by Hani Hikmat Masri, TYO model was developed in close collaboration with the communities the organization serves to address a number of complex and interrelated developmental challenges such as poverty, unemployment, a mental health crisis, lack of access to medical resources, and a lack of access to quality education. Our approach is locally driven and globally informed. We value the assets and knowledge of our local community and design all of our programs on evidence-based local needs. We also seek to collaborate and build our best practices based on insights from our international networks, staff, and interns. TYO engages children, youth, and parents in productive, formative, and fulfilling activities. Our programming bridges divides of age, socio-economic status, religion, gender, and culture to form a more peaceful global community. We unite families from different neighborhoods, cities, villages, and refugee camps.