WENDY WHEELER, President

Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development

 
Welcome to the second issue of Innovate, the Innovation Center’s quarterly newsletter highlighting promising practices in youth and community development.

This issue of Innovate is dedicated to the proposition that communities grow stronger when youth and adults come together, create roadmaps for improvement, and implement their plans. Creative ideas, wonderful intentions, and fabulous values are a great starting point, but not enough. The whole point of what we do is to put values into action – empowering people on the ground to share what works and change their communities.

This simple insight keeps our focus on the heart of communities, youth and adults who implement change on a daily basis. Our job is to give these committed individuals the training and the tools they need to make change happen. We currently have 99 people in our cadre of trainers – all of whom are graduates of our 4-day “train the trainer” program. In this issue you’ll read about two of them – Steve Henness and Beth Tucker. You’ll also read an article by Alayna Lucero Contreras, a young woman from Flagstaff, AZ, who is using our tool kits to create a unique program for young mothers.

The Innovation Center’s tool kits are designed with a practical focus. From Building Community to the newly released Learning and Leading and Reflect and Improve, these tools have been developed and tested through hundreds of training sessions in diverse communities across the nation. Our training sessions not only prepare facilitators to work with community groups, they enable us to learn from the myriad experiences and accomplishments in communities across the country. They enable us to improve our programs and expand our perspectives. All our materials are co-designed by youth and adults.

The tool kits appeal to a wide range of audiences: youth and adult, urban and rural, local and national, nonprofit and corporate. The exercises contained in them are relatively easy to adapt and use. In today’s environment, where so many non-profits are financially challenged, making the tool kits affordable and readily available is especially important. The thinking and activities incorporated into the tool kits can help organizations keep their doors open and assist community leaders in making their communities more just and equitable.

I believe our focus on collaborative learning and action is important because the need to bring people together in our increasingly polarized society is so great. At the Innovation Center, we are dedicated to finding new and innovative ways to help people of all ages and all ideologies consider the question: “How can we make our community more just and equitable to all?” Through answering such questions, meaningful change will emerge.

Thanks to all of you for your ongoing commitment and support of our work.

© 2005 Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development