The 4th Annual Youth Opportunity Youth Leadership Conference:Heading For Success
 

Baltimore MD:

What: The 4th Annual Youth Opportunity Youth Leadership Conference: Heading For Success

When: Thursday, August 5, 2004, from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Where: The Liberty Campus of Baltimore City Community College
(Opening and closing forums, from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 - 4:00 p.m., will be held in the Fine Arts Auditorium.)

Description: More than 400 Youth Opportunity members (ages 14 to 21) will participate in a conference focused on the psychology of leadership and developing attitudes to facilitate success. The keynote speaker at the event (from 10:30 – 11:00 a.m.) will be renowned psychologist Dr. Janice Stevenson, who has appeared on the Oprah and Montel Williams television shows. Also featured will be a special performance, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m., by hip-hop poet Tonya Maria Matthews (known as JaHipster) and local jazz artist and songwriter Michael Austin, who served 26 years in jail for a crime he did not commit.

An initiative of the Baltimore Workforce Investment Board Youth Council, Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, and multiple workforce partners, YO! Baltimore increases the long-term employability of Empowerment Zone youth and young adults by offering a broad array of education, work-readiness and personal development resources and activities. These are young people living in some of the city’s most economically disadvantaged communities.

Since YO! Baltimore began four years ago, more than 3,800 Empowerment Zone residents, ages 16 to 21, have become YO! members. Of these members:

1,444 have been placed in full-time employment, educational programs or skills training including 208 enrolled or having completed college (two have earned AA degrees and one a bachelor’s degree)

376 have earned high school diplomas, and 136 have earned their GEDs 

234 have earned career training credentials

For additional information about YO! Baltimore, please call 410-396-6722 or visitwww.yobaltimore.org.