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 The Center for Multicultural Cooperation currently implements a variety of Civic Education Initiatives, including:
The Civic Education Network for Region 7 is comprised of educators, student leaders, business, government and community leaders, who share the common interest of developing new partnerships with the goal of preparing youth to become active, responsible, and ethical participants in our democracy. The Network collaborates with programs at the state and national level to share ideas and resources, such as the Civic Mission of Schools Campaign “Educating for Democracy.” Partners for the Civic Education Network come from Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties (www.civednet7.org)
Youth Voices: One of the goals of the new California Voices program is to empower students to solve real problems and to participate in the democratic process, using media to express their voice on current issues affecting their community. Students identify issues that they think are important and deliberate what they want to do about it. They plan and produce a video about the issue they selected and the changes they advocate.
The Fresno Youth Service Council is a leadership/civic engagement program for high school and college students to identify critical issues and guide youth leaders to coordinate projects at schools and plan the annual San Joaquin Valley Youth Summit. Meetings are held on the second Monday of each month, 5:30-8:00 pm, at the Kermit Koontz Education Center, 2822 E. Floradora Ave. Fresno. This year the 8th annual San Joaquin Valley Youth Summit will be held on Jan 9 at CSUFresno. The Fresno Youth Service Council is a program of the Fresno County Office of Education, co-sponsored by the Center for Multicultural Cooperation and CSUFresno.
The Grants Advisory Board for Youth (GABY) is a program of the Fresno Regional Foundation, the Great Valley Center and the Center for Multicultural Cooperation with support from the Youth Leadership Institute and the American Humanics Program at CSU Fresno. The Grants Advisory Board for Youth trains high school and college youth to give grants to youth-led service projects in Region 7. Last year GABY granted $16,000 to student-led projects in the San Joaquin Valley.
Teacher Training: CMC staff present staff development programs on character and civic education and service-learning strategies. This includes the CMC curriculum, Active Citizenship, Empowering America’s Youth, by John Minkler and the new publication, Teacher Tools for Civic Education and Service-Learning, by John Minkler and Don Hill (www.civednet7.org/teachertools.html ). Don Reed presents educational programs including Beyond Tolerance; Healing Racism, along with consultation on violence prevention and conflict resolution programs, with a unique experiential approach to respectful human relations.
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