The Uzuri Project Youth Institute wrapped up another eight-week session of Emerging Leaders workshops for youths 10 to 17 years old.
For more than 20 years, TUPYI has been instilling leadership skills in Hot Springs area youths through activities and presentations designed to promote confidence, greater understanding and a sense of community, a news release said.
The three levels, or "tracks," of the program build toward these goals and ultimately provide hands-on involvement in community matters. Last year, the young leaders were able to meet with the Arkansas Legislative Black Caucus and address the Arkansas Fair Housing Commission, it said.
Some 250 students have completed the program and more than 1,000 have been impacted statewide. Many alumni have careers that reflect a love of community service by obtaining degrees in education, law and medicine, or becoming entrepreneurs.
Graduates of the first TUPYI class of Emerging Leaders, Jamaal Hollinshed and Cicely Webb-Hicks, along with her husband, DeAngelo, formed RA Psychle, a community education and restoration project. Now, 20 years later, they returned to present a workshop to this year's youths.
Gardening With Nia offered a hands-on experience to cultivate conversation and relationships between young people and seniors through gardening.
Intergenerational understanding is a common theme at TUPYI, and youths have conducted numerous oral history interviews of community elders that have become a part of an archival collection of Hot Springs history. This collection will be displayed in the future home of TUPYI, the Historic John Lee Webb House. Once restored, this home will provide space for workshops and gatherings of Emerging Leaders and a gallery of Hot Springs' African-American history.
In celebration of 20 years of building leaders and with a look to the future in their new home, an event will be held at Historic Visitors Chapel AME Church at 6 p.m. Nov. 15. A Thanksgiving For The John Lee Webb House will be hosted by The Fun City Chorus with author and educator Ron McAdoo as master of ceremonies. The event will honor the late Rev. Cornelious Leron Hollinshed, a founding member of The Uzuri Project whose vision of community is embodied in this year's theme, "Moving Forward." The celebration will feature songs from several community choirs and the Fun City Chorus. Admission is free.
Email [email protected] or call 624-9400 for more information.
School on 11/11/2018