NYLC & NSLP Announce Emerging Leaders

The National Youth Leadership Council and National Service-Learning Partnership at the Academy for Educational Development are pleased to announce the selection of 22 young professionals and organizations for participation in the Service-Learning Emerging Leaders Initiative. The emerging leaders are employed by the host organizations for a period of two years — building organizational capacity and a new generation of diverse service-learning leadership, committed to working with traditionally under-served populations, schools, and communities.

These young professionals are at critical turning points in their careers and are ready for substantive leadership roles within the service-learning field. They share a desire to utilize service-learning as a strategy to strengthen education as well as to address issues of equity, inclusion, and justice in local communities and in the larger democracy. They will challenge the prevailing priorities and practices of our field, as well as those of local organizations and communities.

The emerging leaders include community organizers, teachers, spiritual leaders, health care advocates, youth workers, and former lawyers. They will work with students, teachers, policy-makers, homeless youths, and even Nobel laureates. Each will lead significant work advancing and sustaining service-learning in the areas of practice and professional development, policy advocacy, research, constituency-building, and communications and visibility.

Please join us in congratulating the following emerging leaders and their host organizations:

Juliet de Jesus Alejandre
Logan Square Neighborhood Association

Veniayetta Aikens
Rural School & Community Trust

Cathy Avila-Linn
California Campus Compact

Rudolfo Balles
Peace Jam

Bahati Banks
Center for Community Health & Service-Learning (Morehouse School of Medicine)

Julie Chavez Rodriguez
Cesar E. Chavez Foundation

Shalom Cook
YMCA of Greater Seattle — Metrocenter Branch

Sonia Cruz
Camp Fire USA

Jose Dobles
Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice

Ana Echeverria
Congreso de Latinos Unidos

Bernard Gill
National Youth Leadership Council

Abby Kiesa
Center for Innovative Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)

Angela Lariviere
Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio

Gregorio Medina
Constitutional Rights Foundation

Tashmesia Mitchelle
Front Range Earth Force

Marc Morgan
City Year National, Inc.

Angeline Mutima
Youth Service America

Shannon Tolbert
Resource CenterOmar Wandera
Leadership Public Schools Hayward 

Mairead Widby
Urban Indian Health Institute

Andrea Yoder
Elementary Institute of Science

Seung Yu
SEANet