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Youth Leadership America (YLA) is a non-profit organization that
fosters leadership among America’s youth in order to promote positive
change. Our motto is that “leaders are made, not born.” Using the city as a classroom,
we serve youth by bringing them in contact with the community and we
serve the community by brining it in contact with its youth. In our
experience, the students bring the dreams and passion to the table and
community leaders bring the pragmatism and know-how. We play the role
of the matchmaker.
Over the
past four years we’ve been connecting students with civic, business,
and community leaders. Some of the notable organizations with which we collaborate: the Tiger Woods Foundation, Anaheim Union High School District and the Disneyland Resort.By
letting the YLA youth board choose their own activities and direction,
we create an atmosphere in which the youth can learn to be leaders by
actually leading. |
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Youth Leadership America is the outgrowth of Youth Leadership Anaheim,
a program that was founded in 2002 by a group of high school students
in Anaheim, California. Inspired by the vision of program founder John
Nguyen, these youth created a leadership development program that was operated by high school students for high
school students. John approached Leadership Anaheim, an Anaheim-based
not-for-profit, with his idea to inspire youth to lead by giving them
the opportunity to interact and work with community leaders. Chartered
as the youth component of Leadership Anaheim, Youth Leadership Anaheim
was born. Each year a youth board of directors comprised of ten to
twenty high school students operated and expanded the program. Under
the guidance of youth board and holding to the belief that “Leaders are
made, not born,” Youth Leadership Anaheim flourished as it molded young
people into skilled leaders.
Three years later, John Nguyen, along with some other founding board
members, facilitated an intense weekend of goal setting for the
2005-2006 youth board. It was here that the youth board decided that
they wanted to share the benefits of their program with young people
all across the United States. This goal setting session inspired Alexi Robichaux, one of the co-founders with John Nguyen and others, to envision a new YLA, a Youth Leadership America, that would be its own nonprofit commissioned with spreading the YLA model across America.
In January of 2006, with the support of our youth members, community
partners, and Youth Leadership Anaheim, Youth Leadership America was
officially founded as its own 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
To this day, we continue to excel as Anaheim’s premier youth leadership
program and aggressively pursue our vision of exporting our
community-centric leadership development model throughout all of
America.
“There
is a powerful driving force inside every human being that once
unleashed can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality.
Youth Leadership America's comprehensive hands-on curriculum affords us
the opportunities to develop today's young people into tomorrow's adult
leaders.” John Nguyen, Founder |
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