Programs for Neighborhood Youth:
Latin American Youth Center

An American Youth Policy Forum Field Trip — January 14, 2000

The visit to the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) showcased a comprehensive neighborhood youth program, a charter school for teen parents, and a YouthBuild program. The LAYC is located in Columbia Heights, one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse neighborhoods Washington, DC. Columbia Heights is home to several generations of Latino immigrants with a strong sense of cultural pride and community solidarity. The LAYC has not only been the physical manifestation of that pride and solidarity for thirty-two years, it has also provided vital educational, social, and cultural services to Latino youth and their families.

Though it remains focused primarily on Latino youth, the LAYC serves many different constituents. Of the 5000 youth and family participants who view the Center as a home away from home, 70% are Latino and the remaining 30% are Vietnamese, Caribbean, African-American, and African. The Center staff and Board of Directors reflect the diversity of the surrounding community, and many are themselves alumni of the LAYC youth programs.

Over the years, the Center has also diversified its programs in an effort to better serve changing community needs. The LAYC provides a comprehensive array of services and programs including education, job training, summer and after-school programs, entrepreneurial and college preparatory activities, social services and family support, health education, and artistic enrichment initiatives. In addition, youth from the Center maintain a radio studio, Youth Radio, which runs a nationally recognized broadcast journalism training program.

The LAYC director, Lori Kaplan, shepherded fieldtrip participants on a tour of the Center’s new home, a beautifully renovated four-story row house at 1419 Columbia Road, NW. After more than three years of intense fund raising, the Center moved into the new facility in 1998. In the old building, according to Kaplan, the LAYC staff members would be lucky to come to work on a day when the lights, heat, and computers all worked simultaneously. In renovating the new facility, the Center staff wanted to create a place in the community that was warm, attractive, safe, and truly deserving of the youth and families that use its services. Center youth formed the moving company, participants in the YouthBuild program assisted the contractors with renovations, and the LAYC alumni wired the building for computer terminals and administered the Center’s network. The stunning new facility, with colorful tile murals designed by students and bright open common spaces in which children can play and learn, was clearly a labor of love.

Visitors to the Center begin with a tour of a powerful exhibit entitled "Coming to Washington," which commemorates the migration of six families from Latin America to Washington, DC. With assistance from the Smithsonian’s Office of Folklife and the Washington Historical Society, Center youth collected newspaper articles, photographs, and other memorabilia in an effort to chronicle the long, arduous journeys of their forerunners. Oral history interviews connected the young Latino researchers to an older generation of immigrants and community leaders. This older generation had to overcome many of the same language barriers and economic hardships faced by the LAYC youth today. Through learning activities and computer stations, the interactive nature of the exhibit draws both children and adults into the stories of these families. An altar at the heart of the exhibit, adorned with religious iconography and photographs of deceased community members, underlines the heroism of the families that survived and thrived here in America. For the LAYC staff, it is a constant reminder of why they work so hard every day.

Next Step Public Charter School

Much of the real work goes on upstairs in the Next Step Public Charter School where the children of recent immigrants grapple with English, academics and teen parenting. Founded in 1998, the Charter School sprang from a Teen Parent Education Program at the Center that attempted to integrate academic training with workshops in health education, parenting, and pregnancy prevention. Over half of the 48 students in the school this year are teen parents, and all of them dropped out of public school due to lack of proficiency in English and/or difficulties with childcare.

At the Charter School, three English classes, a computer course, and a GED class prepare students for jobs, higher education, and responsible parenting and citizenship. Vinnie Espinoza, a school staffer who counsels teen fathers, is an alumnus of the Center. As a former teen parent from the neighborhood, Espinoza draws on his own experiences to teach the students about responsibility. He speaks proudly of Fernando Arias, one of the students who dropped out of public school last year, but has a perfect attendance record at the Charter School where he has founded a GED math club that meets for an hour every day before regular classes begin.

"I’m not sure how I feel, philosophically, about Charter Schools," says the LAYC director, Lori Kaplan, but she explains that the Center applied for Charter School status because it was the best way to stabilize funding for the Teen Parent Education Program. Before the Next Step Charter School began, funds for dropouts stayed at the schools that students had left, but through the Charter School, these students receive the funds and support necessary to complete their education. The Charter School offers a more intimate setting where teachers and administrators feel they can better respond to students’ educational and social needs. With no more than twelve students in any one class and three hours per day in English language training (as opposed to three hours per week in some other schools), the students at the LAYC charter school are preparing for the next step.

Columbia Heights YouthBuild

For other LAYC youth, the step toward their future is just down the road at the Columbia Heights YouthBuild Program that is also run by staff from the Latin American Youth Center in collaboration with staffers from the Development Corporation of Columbia Heights. YouthBuild is a national program that dovetails intensive academic instruction leading to a GED or high school diploma with on-the-job training in construction. This year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development put $35 million into local organizations sponsoring YouthBuild programs across the country. At the Columbia Heights YouthBuild, two groups of students alternate between classes in construction and English/computer proficiency. In the computer classes, youth participants renovate old computers and construct new ones. In the construction classes, they learn geometry and other mathematics skills as they design and implement the renovations for nearby buildings.

As with the Next Step Charter School, the 48 youth at the Columbia Heights YouthBuild have all dropped out of the mainstream public school system. They enter YouthBuild through a rigorous selection and training process that requires personal responsibility, but the program brings unique rewards. As students learn through on-the-job training, they receive a living allowance and more importantly, skills that can be parlayed into jobs after they graduate.

Asked to compare YouthBuild to public school programs, students gave a variety of responses. "It’s easier to get a diploma at a high school," one student said, contrasting her previous school experience with the academic rigor of YouthBuild and the standardized GED examination. "I wouldn’t go back to regular school," another student added. "The teachers there don’t care about you. They don’t care if you learn. Our teachers here [in YouthBuild] do care." Of course, his teachers were large men, standing just a few feet away with two-by-fours in their hands, but one gets the sense that the smaller class size at YouthBuild (ten-twelve students per class) does allow more individualized instruction. The teachers in the YouthBuild program clearly care not only about their students’ academic skills and success, but their life skills and success as well.

After visiting the YouthBuild program, field trip participants returned to the main LAYC building for an hour of discussion. Much of the discussion focused on funding for the Center and the YouthBuild program. The LAYC director, Lori Kaplan, explained that because YouthBuild grants must be renewed annually, she and other Center Board members are considering applying for charter school status for the YouthBuild program to ensure more stable funding. For non-profits like the LAYC, funding is a constant struggle that goes on behind the scenes of the visible, day-to-day community organizing and education. One of the greatest challenges youth service providers face is trying to rationalize and match public and private funding streams, so that effective initiatives for youth continue to get the support they need and deserve.

Contact Information

Lori Kaplan
Executive Director,
Latin American Youth Center
1419 Columbia Road, NW
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 202.319.2225 Fax: 202.462.5696
www.layc-dc.org

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