LIBERTYS PROMISE INC

Liberty’s Promise was founded in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a way of championing this country’s best ideals—egalitarianism, equal opportunity, and freedom—for the newest members of our community. We began programming in 2005, and since then we have worked with more than 8,000 low-income, immigrant youth from 124 countries now living in the DC or Baltimore Metro areas. Our goal is to help young newcomers become actively involved in their communities, pursue higher education, and embark on meaningful careers. Our programs inform young people of the many opportunities available to them and help them realize that, despite cultural and linguistic differences, they can succeed in the United States. By doing so, we help promote their sense of belonging and participation in our shared American community. Many immigrant youth move to the Washington, DC and Baltimore Metro areas hoping to start a new, successful life, but when they arrive in an unknown world, they fade into the background and tend not to be active participants in class, school activities, or their community. Daily, these youth face numerous challenges. Many have had interrupted education or even went long periods with no education before immigrating to the United States. They frequently share cramped quarters with multiple family members, including parents with whom they may just be reconnecting after years of separation. Other immigrant youth who came to the United States as unaccompanied minors live with relatives who are not their parents. Consequently, many immigrant youth lack strong adult support structures in their lives. Despite the influx of at-risk young immigrants in the area, there is a dearth of services available to address their needs. Our programs assist at-risk immigrant youth by helping them envision a positive future for themselves. We do this by engaging our participants in the civic life of their community and showing them how the American system works. Many youth enter our programs unsure and even discouraged about their future. By participating in our programs, however, they learn about the many opportunities available to them in their new home and realize that they, too, can succeed. Our programs help young people cultivate their individual talents and build the professional skills and self-confidence they need to prepare themselves for meaningful careers in the United States. The impact of our work on the lives of our participants can be best summed up by Kevin, originally from El Salvador, who described the significance of Liberty’s Promise to him in one word: “esperanza” (hope). At the beginning of our after-school civics programs, our youth often pick the seats towards the back of the room. They are hesitant to mingle outside of their individual ethnic groups, reluctant to pose questions to guest speakers and participate in activities, and spend quite a bit of time on their cell phones. By the end of the semester, however, our youth arrive early to every meeting, sit in the front of the class, and actively participate. Such growth can be seen in youth like Beza, originally from Ethiopia. She entered our Civics and Citizenship program like so many of her peers: shy, unsure how to interact with the guest speakers, and unwilling to participate in activities. By the beginning of the following semester, however, she ran for president of the group. Her leadership and public speaking skills have grown tremendously, and she now introduces guest speakers, who have included the executive officers of multi-billion dollar corporations, with the utmost confidence to her peers. Her leadership skills have not gone unnoticed. This summer she was nominated for a scholarship from the Posse Foundation. Liberty’s Promise focuses on character development, good citizenship, and community service. We continually work to assist the immigrant youth in the Washington, DC and Baltimore Metro areas that are in need of our services, and our after-school programs help newcomer adolescents learn about American civic life. We currently run programs for low-income, immigrant youth, ages 11 to 21, at 27 locations throughout the Washington, DC and Baltimore Metro areas. Many programs are conducted bilingually, or even entirely in Spanish. Our Spanish-language program, Civic Engagement for Beginning English Language Learners (CE-BELL), is explicitly designed for the steadily growing population of students who arrive in our communities with little or no English-language skills. Liberty’s Promise creates an environment that inspires young people to feel like they can try, a safe space where they can realize that learning English is a real possibility for them, and, thereby, realize that opportunities to succeed are in fact attainable. We are convinced that these youth, who now see no future for themselves, will become engaged in their education once they see the opportunities available to them. By showing youth that their native language skills are desired, valuable professional assets—that they can get a good job with their knowledge of Spanish, provided that they learn English—CE-BELL gives them a concrete reason to take learning seriously, stay in school, and successfully graduate. It is not enough to conduct a program that aims to offer some life skills with the tacit assumption that nothing much will come of its participants. Young people see right through that. Adolescents need to be told that they can excel, and they need to be around people who believe they can succeed, hence, Liberty’s Promise and the CE-BELL program. Our final core program, Opportunities Plus, is our professional internship program that exposes youth to the world of professional employment. This program helps our participants become familiar with—and feel at home in—professional work environments, encouraging them to set their goals high and realize that their immigrant background is an asset in our increasingly globalized world. Through this program, youth not only learn how to apply for and secure gainful employment, but also become competent in American workplace etiquette, which often differs substantially from the customs of their home countries. During our program, youth learn and develop the skills necessary to thrive in the workplace, such as time management, customer service skills, how to take initiative, and communication skills. We have had the opportunity to visit rural communities in Arkansas, Iowa, Texas, and Virginia to examine the feasibility of expanding our work nationwide. In all instances, we perceived a profound disconnect between immigrant groups and the broader community. Apart from occasions when both groups must interact (during the school day, for example), immigrant groups seem to be living apart from their neighbors, a phenomenon that does not bode well for the transmission of the best cultural and political values of the Republic. In one instance, representatives of the Hispanic population—some of whom had lived in an Iowa community for generations—continue to approach the local parish priest in order to ask him to intercede with the town council on their behalf so they might obtain a parade permit. We believe our programs can help mitigate this divide and strengthen the civic participation of immigrant populations. Here in the Washington, DC Metro area, the response to our programs continues to be strong and enthusiastic. Since beginning our programs in 2005, 97 percent of program alumni have earned their high school diploma or GED. Moreover, some of our past participants are just now graduating from schools like Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Lafayette, and NYU. We look forward to seeing our number of college graduates grow over time. The support of generous donors like you allows us to give young immigrants a positive outlook for the future and the tools and knowledge they need to succeed. For additional information, please visit our web site at www.libertyspromise.org.

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