Diversity Leadership Team
The Diversity Leadership Team (DLT) brings together high school students from Northeast Ohio to discover new ways of increasing diversity awareness in the community, push the call for social justic foward, and engage the region in sustainable community service. Functioning from a youth centered pedagogy, the DLT operates with the understanding that youth are an oppressed group in our nation. For this reason, our premier out-of-school time program focuses on deep learning through youth empowerment, which we identify as "The Five C's of DLT", to ally for rights of our youth, and to honor who they are and who they will become.
The Five C's of DLT
- Certified Leader Training: Students will learn and practice facilitator techniques, and learn leadership and team building skills. This allows the DLT members to take these dexterities back to their home schools and ocmmunities to effect greater change.
- Civic Engagement: The DLT members will learn about the systemic issues around equity and justice that case problems in Northeast Ohio through research, discussion, and community events. Using the information gained, they will create action plans to begin making a difference.
- Community Service: After the DLT becomes aware of intersecting social issues, they will partner with other youth-serving organizations to participate in several service-learning projects around that issue.
- Creative Education: Through an arts-education model, the DLT will incorporate the arts into every facet of their DLT experience to gain further understanding of who they are through artistic expression.
- Camp STARR: Camp STARR (Students Talking about Race Relations) is the capstone of the DLT experience. Students travel to Cincinnati, Ohio to engage in powerful conversations about race. This year, students will focus on Native American Removal, or the Trail of Tears.
Structure
Students meet once a month for a skill building workshop facilitated by a Diversity Center staff member. Students are then encouraged to attend a service project/special event each month that relates to that month’s skill building session. For example, if students received a session on socioeconomics, their event could be a service project at Shoes and Clothes for Kids. Through this model, students are given real life of examples of how to turn theory in to practice. In May, students are recognized for their commitment thought a closing ceremony and awarding of community service hours and awards from the community.
Staffing
In addition to staff, DLT alumni help to organize and facilitate the program. The peer leadership model has proven effective in recruiting and retention of current students. In addition to the peer leadership model, The Diversity Center has been selected as field placement site for the Mandel School of Applied and Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Currently, an intern from this program is serving in the Program Department is concentrating on integrating a resiliency model in the DLT.
The DLT is a cost-free program. The Diversity Center offers bus passes, snacks, and a DLT t-shirt to students who participate.
For more information or to become a member, please contact 216-752-3000 or programs@diversitycenterneo.org.
Diversity Leadership Team - Graduation 2008
DAVION BLADE (Senior), Collinwood High School, Student of the Year, standing between his mother and Diversity Center staff member
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