The Leadership Institute is our training program offered in partnership with the Santa Fe Mountain Center and many other nonprofit organizations. It includes a one-week intensive training camp and over 50 hours of additional training, support, & mentorship to equip participants will skills, knowledge, and experience in: 1) Personal Leadership 2) Cross Cultural Relationship Building 3) Ecological Literacy 4) Sustainable Practices 5) Social Action Theory & Methods 6) Service-Learning and Project Planning. Students trained through the Institute work to integrate service-learning and social action at their schools and in their home communities through participation in National Days of Service and Global Youth Service Days in April and October. Activities include ropes courses, outdoor adventure trips, hands-on sustainable living techniques, media training, and more.

The Leadership Institute is based on the following curriculum:

Connection to Self and Personal Leadership- Youth Allies is designed to help young people explore and discover who they are and what gifts they have to offer the world. Throughout the program youth use storytelling, visual art, spoken word, and reflective writing to explore their identity, history, and personal calling. Youth learn about self-care and personal sustainability as a precursor to being an effective activist. For us this means helping young people face their fears, reach into and heal from personal pain and trauma, and practice self-maintenance and healthy living habits. It also means helping young people tap their natural talents and passions in service of the greater good.

Connection to Others: Cross-Cultural Healing & Social, Economic, & Environmental Justice- Youth participants explore their own cultural identity and bridge and heal cultural divides. In order to do so, participants explore how they have been shaped by their own cultural heritage and reflect on their values, beliefs, and cultural mythology. Our emphasis is on building self awareness of our impact on others and the world and to encourage young people to build positive cultural identities. From there, we provide training in decolonization and anti-oppression so that participants understand the ways in which they are shaped by and participate in systems of oppression, cycles of violence, and exploitation. Participants learn about how these systems in part perpetuated throughout history from colonization to imperialism to globalization. Through self reflection, shared visioning, the arts, and dialogue, we work with our participants to create cross-cultural understanding, healing, and forgiveness. This process helps youth to build powerful cross-cultural alliances as they develop & implement strategies, campaigns, and projects to address social, environmental, & economic injustice in the community and around the world.

Connection to the Earth and Sustainable Practices - Through the program youth reconnect with the land by cooking with food from youth-led gardens, building with adobe, or sitting silently outside - observing, and listening. Youth learn key ecological concepts such as diversity, interdependence, scarcity, resilience and adaptation all of which apply to both ecological as well as social systems. Youth learn tracking techniques and pattern identification and observe in nature those things that strengthen living systems and promote life and health as well as those things that hinder them. One of the core elements of the curriculum is systems thinking or relational thinking – the ecological insight that all things are connected and are interdependent. Youth learn ways to reduce their own ecological footprints as well as how to address global environmental challenges such as climate change.

Please contact us if you are interested in learning more about the curriculum or any other aspect of the Institute.