Youth Institute/CAP at NAYDO 2011

Wed., April 27th – Sat., April 30th

Growing up we are usually taught to give three words that describes a significant event. I believe that I took away more than three simple words. I took back experience itself as well as life-long motivation. NAYDO is designed to, well, in a lack of better words, to get “the know” or find what’s “in” I was able to see so many people around the world who’s motives were to better their community by either establishing a program for the youth and elderly or taking what they learn back to their programs and continue building from there. Although I was one of the youngest attendees present I felt even more compelled to be a part of this event for years to come.

On Tuesday night we arrived at the Marriot hotel in Anaheim, California expecting to jump into the comfortable beds provided by the hotel. Instead we were told to sort and write inventory of the equipment. The technology that was packed into our room became important to the conference as I soon realized. Roughly an hour later everything was set and batteries where charging. The only thing we had to do was get some rest, because at 7:30 AM we had to be dressed and ready for the conference.

Even before the conference we were meeting people from other YMCAs during breakfast. I personally met a program coordinator from Stockton, California. Within twenty minutes we were introduced to the CEO and Vice President of the YMCA of Mexico City. I didn’t realize what we had gotten ourselves into. Besides Bob, we were all under the age of 25, but very willing to meet and greet with important people. Although we were told that we would be meeting important figures, in a way I felt that they were coming to meet us.

As an exhibitor I and the other interns of Change Agents managed the exhibit that show cased what we had done and the services we could provide for other YMCAs who were interested in our work. Many recognized our unique logo and cheerful, youthful, looks from the brochures that greeted there office weeks prior to the conference. We were greeted by people saying, “Yeah, I saw the flyer!” or “I just had to come by and learn more.” After blushing a little, it was time to get down to business; get them interested, but not holding their time to long ,and getting straight to the point. Surprisingly my peers and I quickly adapted to this environment easily with hardly a dull moment. I found that working with someone is a lot easier than jumping into a river by myself. We were able to feed off of each other making the conversation easier. We learned the difficulties of marketing a product and the importance of having or building abilities to network with people in hopes for them to come seeking for more. Many were impressed by the work that we were doing in Long Beach, but they were more impressed by our ages. Someone said that they simply were drawn to your booth because it felt like we were the freshest in the room. That made me laugh a little, but it showed that liveliness and presentation was as important. Besides shaking hands we were also in charge of gathering photos of the conference that would be shown the following evening. Many of us recorded footage and even got a few to shout “NAYDO rocks!!” which was one of the highlights of the conference. The work was rigorous, but for the staff that stayed up late at night to finish projects, it was all worth it. The products were beautiful and the crowd was pleased.

We were also allowed to dine with the conference and enjoy each key-note speaker each night. My most memorable experiences I had during those evening was watching Father Boyle deliver a breathtaking and eye watering speech that had everyone in the room simply moved. Beside his poetic dissertation and his heart felt stories of the kids he works with every day, he was still able to embody the importance of kinship and compassion. Every key-note speaker brought something new and unique to the podium and truly gave the audience a sense of urge to give and give to their communities the information they had taken form NAYDO.

I do hope that in the near future I could re-live my experiences I shared with my colleges here at NAYDO.

To see pictures of this event click here

Written by:

Dasire’e P. (Youth Institute Student)

Youth Institute San Fransisco Trip 2011

Change Agents & The Youth Institute Just got back from San Francisco and it was awesome! Visited Apple Inc. where we actually got and Executive Briefing from the Apple Dream Team Engineers. Visited the East Palo Alto YMCA Youth Institute where we did a screening of our movies, played B-Ball and climbed their wall! And last, we toured the city from the Haunted Fort Mason youth Hostel. That place ROCKS! Check out the pics!

Youth Institute 10th Year Anniversary Celebration

You are invited to our 10th Year Youth Institute Anniversary Celebration. Join us for dinner and presentations to celebrate a program like no other. Hear the stories, engage with the youth and meet our funders. RSVP to Bob Cabeza: bob.cabeza@lbymca.org

Long Beach Police Chief McDonald Visits Youth Institute

Long Beach Police Chief McDonald Visits Youth Institute - Our new Police Chief McDonald visited our Youth Institute on March 30th and had an open dialogue with our Teens about their perceptions of police in general and the police side of the story. Chief McDonald was both factual, caring, and inspirational to our Teens letting them know how police can better interact with them and how they can help the police. It was inspiring to hear that Office McDonald is a first generation American from Ireland who grew up in a poor family. "He can relate" was a comment from one of our teens.

Staff Spotlight: Maria Gandarilla Awarded at CSULB

Maria Gandarilla, Youth Institute Alumni, Y Staff

Named Outstanding Graduate of the Year by the School of Health and Human Services at California State University Long Beach

Maria Gandarilla, Youth Institute Class of 2004, was named the Outstanding Graduate of the Year by California State University faculty this March, 2011. This honor was bestowed on Maria at a special ceremony held at CSULB. Maria has grown up at our Community Development YMCA. She and her family participated in our JCPP program back in the late 90’s. She was a part of our CORAL after school programs ten years ago and was a part of our Youth Institute from 2004 to present day. Maria went to CSULB to study Social Work. She gets her undergraduate degree BSW this May and will go into the MSW program at CSULB this fall.

We are so proud of Maria’s accomplishments and wish to extend our congratulations to another one of the YMCA Youth Institute success stories during the past ten years. You are a part of our YMCA family and will always have a place here at our YMCA!

By Bob Cabeza (VP, Community Development)

Change Agent Productions Builds The Children's Institute's Technology Lab

Change Agent Production's recently finished building a new technology lab for The Children’s Institute in Los Angeles. The Children’s Institute wanted to build a technology lab for their under-served community where youth can come and create digital media pieces. Everything from music, graphics, short films, photography and much more! Change Agent Productions helped in designing the lab, purchasing the equipment and setting up all the computers. There was a lot of hard work and planning on both ends of this project and the pay off will affect many of Los Angeles' youth. For more pictures of the project visit our Change Agent Productions website: www.changeagentsproductions.org/node/541

AAUW STEM Career Conference Field Trip

My name is Samantha, I am an 8^th Grader at Burcham K-8 School. On Friday, February 26, 2010. I went on a field trip with my YMCA/WRAP After School Program to Long Beach City College (Liberal Arts Campus) for the annual AAUW (American Association of University Women) STEM Career Conference. I had a great experience. Before we went on the field trip, we had to fill out a paper and choose which career workshops we were interested in. There were so many choices to make. The choices were architect, banker, chemical engineer, computer programmer, coroner, horticulturist, marine biologist, and public health nurse. I had to pick my top three I wanted. I picked coroner, chemical engineer and marine biologist. The conference was in the new building at LBCC. When we arrived to LBCC, there were many different girls attending from different schools. There were a lot of middle school girls and also high school girls.

In the beginning, we all went into the main building we listened to a keynote speaker. She was talking to us about what she did and that she had a very challenging life growing up and that she was not ashamed to tell us girls her story. She told us that she had a boyfriend that was a gang member and he got her pregnant and it messed up her life. She shared that she really wanted to finish her education. She said she was no longer with her gang member boyfriend and she finally did graduate from Cal State Dominguez. Her story meant something to me because she went through a lot of challenges but she pushed forward to finish her school and go on to finish college. I want to finish high school, go to college and accomplish my goals. She told us not to give up, to finish college and not to hang out with street boys or have boyfriends in high school. We should focus on school and achieve all goals.

The two workshops I attended were the chemical engineer and the coroner ones. Chemical engineering was a fun experience because I always thought that the factory would be harmful to us. The speaker was one of the employees of the factory and she told us why she works there. One reason she told us when she was a kid she wanted to create make –up and the perfect acne product. After she told us how the factory works, she then had us do an experiment that was so fun but slimy. We made some type of goo that is easy to make at home. The Coroner has a job that you have to have guts for to do. I would try to handle the job but the lady that was our teacher had courage. The fist step to take care of the dead body is that she has to check how did that person die. Second step if their friend or someone in the car survives they have to put their name on the toe tag. There are different types of death like suicide, murder, and overdose. I enjoyed the coroner a lot because I didn’t know that there was a coroner I thought that the police or ambulance paramedics took care of dead people. It really opened my eyes that people there are people in charge of just finding out how people die. The coroner was very funny and I learned a lot from her.

Both of the subjects that I attended were fun and I can’t pick a favorite. I learned so much from and I loved it. This experience gave me ideas on what kind of career I can have. It was an experience I will not forget.

For more information on AAUW, visit their website: www.aauw.org

Written By Samantha T.