In the summer before their senior year, three young ladies, eager to explore the realms of leadership in their communities and ready to learn useful skills in running an organization, prepared to take advantage of one of the most eye-opening opportunities of their lives—the opportunity to attend Ashoka’s Youth Venture.
Ashoka, an organization of passionate people who devote themselves to creating change in the world, has created a sub-organization, Youth Venture, directed toward youth (ages 14-24) who are devoted to the same cause. Every summer, Youth Venture holds a Summit in a selected city in the US. The summit, held on the campuses of renowned universities, consists of several seminars that pin-point the obstacles and struggles of running non-profit organizations and strategies to overcome those hindrances. In addition to learning how to successfully grow such organizations, these young teens are able to meet and mingle with other youth just like them from around the world! This is exactly what Fan Fan, Lydia Atangcho, and Jackie Borinsky (President, Vice-President, and Treasurer, respectively) experienced while at Youth Venture.
This particular summit, which took place in Boston, Massachusetts on the campuses of Boston University, MIT, and Harvard college, taught these three young change makers a great deal about how to make their organization thrive. With the support of their new-found friends who shared their own experiences with their own organizations, Fan, Lydia, and Jackie returned to Johns Creek and started brainstorming right away. Since then, 121Reach has never been the same.
Because of the impact that Youth Venture has had on 121Reach, we hope to sponsor new officers to attend Youth Venture in 2010 so that they too can meet others who want to make a difference in the world and most importantly, so that they will be motivated to carry on 121Reach to the best of their abilities.
For more information on Ashoka’s Youth Venture, visit www.genv.net!
>> For more photos of the Youth Venture Summit 2009, click here
