Lowell Herschberger, Director of Career and Education Programs for the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, discusses how Roots of Success helps educators in their programs communicate ‘the message within the message’ to disconnected youth in a blog post recently featured by National Council of La Raza.
CHLDC’s mission is to revitalize the Cypress Hills community through housing preservation, economic development, and the positive development of youth and families. Through their Youth Build program, CHLDC provides green jobs training to young people in the eastern boroughs of New York City who have dropped out of high school. In the construction component training program participants receive the Roots of Success environmental literacy curriculum, along with weatherization training from the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), renovation, repair, and painting course from Sherwin-Williams, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 30-hour certification training.
By combining introductory hard skills training with an empowering environmental literacy and job readiness curriculum, CHLDC enables participants to take advantage of opportunities in the green economy, improve conditions in their communities, and make meaningful decision about the kinds of careers they might pursue.