Young Merchants Club is the world’s first high school-in-the-making that utilizes ex-convicted felons as faculty. Our educators are Returning Citizens who use their identities and life experience to inspire at risk students to make better long-term decisions by developing self-awareness, practical life-skills, and community-mindedness
Our Work
Project-Based Intervention is a two-pronged learning system:
1. We implement a curriculum developed to focus on teaching youth members the importance of identity, leadership and empathy through innovative methods that give voice to their concerns. We're able to meet state English Language Arts, Science, History and Math baselines utilizing our own proprietary teaching methods.
2. We provide an income-earning project for youth that allows them to utilize the skills they’ve acquired through our curriculum in a real-world setting while earning money on their own terms.
Why is it important?
In a randomized controlled trial performed by the University of Chicago on 1,634 disadvantaged high school youth, assignment to a summer jobs program decreased violence by 43% over 16 months. Arrests per 100 youth dropped from 9 arrests to 5 during and after the program.
When young people work together in collaboration on something meaningful they’ll not only learn self esteem, leadership and resilience they’ll also hold themselves accountable. This is unlike teaching at them or creating moral expectations for them, without creating an environment conducive for those traits to emerge.
Through a project-based learning strategy, we provide training and jobs for the youth we work with.
Our Club
WHY CHANGE MAKES CENTS...
According to the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights and The Southern Poverty Law Center, school discipline is becoming a widespread disproportional problem for black and brown students; grades k-12. The US public school system is failing because it hasn't changed since the industrial revolution when teaching children to work in assembly lines and factories was the standard education. It's time we use alternative methods of learning in order to meet the needs of our inner-city children.
Our Endorsements
“What sets Young Merchants apart from other education leaders is its mission reaches far beyond the academy and its work reverberates in the local community, inciting practical action towards the development of global citizens.” - Dr. Patrick B. Reyes, Director of Strategic Partnerships for Doctoral Initiatives, Forum for Theological Exploration
“I would rate YMC’s presentations to our students at The Boston Counseling and Intervention Center to be among the best presentations for young people that I have witnessed and listened to in schools in my nearly 20 years of employment within the Boston Public Schools!” - Diamond Cephus, Ed.D., Assistant Headmaster, Edward M Kennedy Academy for Health Careers
“In a time when conflict and misunderstanding are rampant, YMC is clearly an effort that is able to assist young people in navigating diverse worlds and cultures in a way that leads forward, toward service and healing.” - Dean Dudley Rose, Harvard University
Our Advisory Board
Dr. Colin Rose
Asst. Superintendent of Opportunity & Achievement Gaps - Boston Public Schools
Travis Bristol PhD
Asst. Professor, Center for Research on Social Change- University of California, Berkeley
Orlando Cruz, Esq.
General Counsel
CJ Crowder
Managing Director
Teach for America
Contact us
If you have questions feel free to fill out this contact box and we'll be in touch!