National Youth Leadership Council

The National Youth Leadership Council supports service-learning, an educational approach that puts students in leadership roles addressing the needs of their communities.

Whether developing model programs, convening practitioners — young people and adults — conducting action research, advancing legislation, or training, NYLC is at the forefront of quality service-learning practice.

Since 1989 the organization has been helping advance this good news in education.

WHAT DOES SERVICE-LEARNING LOOK LIKE?

• Reading to children at a neighborhood library is service.
• Studying mythology is learning.
• Studying mythology from various cultures, developing storybooks, and reading them to younger children is service-learning.

It is distinct from volunteerism in that it integrates these first-hand experiences into school curricula. These experiences result in clear outcomes for students, their teachers, and communities.

A teen mother, for example, applies math skills, gains construction knowledge, and completes her high school diploma while building a house for other women in transition through the YouthBuild program, a national service-learning program with sites in Minnesota.

A group of high school students develop plays about the issues they confront daily in their urban environment — stereotypes about genders, challenges in merging immigrant roots with contemporary culture, pollution — and perform for middle school students, earning language arts credits while offering a community arts experience.

NYLC PROGRAMS

NYLC runs a wide range of service-learning programs that reach across the country and around the world. To learn more, visit www.nylc.org