National Youth Service :
A Global Perspective
Contents
Introduction
1: National Service Programs and Proposals
Profiles of National Service
2: Aspects of National Youth Service
Appendix A: Global Conference Participants, June 18-21, 1992
Appendix B: Annotated Bibliography
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2. Aspects of national youth service
American examples
Conferees spent an afternoon visiting with young people in service projects in the Milwaukee area. At the Bong Recreation Area, they were briefed by Tim Drew- Perry of the Wisconsin Conservation Corps and had a picnic with several Corps members. They also visited a housing project, where members of the Milwaukee Community Service Corps were rehabilitating a house in a poor neighborhood. Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist spoke with the conferees about the importance of the project; and Corps Director Tony Perez said he would like to see the Corps grow from the present 50 members to 1,000. They also met with two volunteers with VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), a federal program enrolling some 3,000 persons age 18 and over throughout the United States.
Conferees became further acquainted with the diversity of national service programs in the United States through the presentations of leaders of three youth service programs. Tim Rochte, Director of International Programs of the California Conservation Corps, at 1,500 members the largest full-time, year-round youth service program in the United States, described the origin of the Corps in 1976 as well as its global interests. Mr. Rochte has organized volunteer exchanges with countries suchas Australia and Russia, and had just returned from the Global Forum in Rio de Janeiro where he gave a workshop on youth conservation corps.
Mr. Alan Khazei of Boston's City Year described this program, which was founded in 1988 and has been operated to date with money from the private sector. He said that enrollment in City Year is expected to grow from the present 100 to several hundred in the next few years, when financial support from the Commission on National and Community Service is added to continuing support from the private sector.
Toni Schmiegelow, director of the City Volunteer Corps of New York, explained how the 400 Corps members are exposed to a variety of city problems by being assigned to both human service and physical projects. In any one year, she said, a team of 15 Corps members is assigned to about 10 projects, ranging from helping to look after elderly residents in a nursing home to constructing benches in a public park.
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National Youth Service : A Global Perspective
Donald J. Eberly, Editor
National Service Secretariat , Washington, D.C.Based on the advanced papers and discussions held at the conference, National Youth Service : A Global Perspective, held at the Wingspread Conference Center, Wisconsin, 18-21 June 1992.
About this online book
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