Just as every young person is different, so are his or her interests and passions. We might have a future Michelangelo and a future Malcolm X on the same team. Each young person needs the opportunity to cultivate greatness in his or her way. To support their development, corps members have unique opportunities to develop specializations through our civic leadership course.

Course selections include public speaking, social entrepreneurship, writing, training, event planning, community organizing, and camp leadership. On any Friday afternoon you might find a group of young people writing poetry for a local magazine or planning an upcoming event. By the end of the course, each member makes a presentation that shows what they have learned.

One rainy Tuesday afternoon, for example, three City Year corps members and a staff member piled in a car bound for Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to do a training for a group of high school students. For these corps members, who had never before led a workshop, this presentation would be the culmination of their civic leadership course work. On the way they talked through their agenda and clarified roles: the staff member would be part of the training, but the corps members would lead most of it.

When they arrived, unsure if they could rise to this new challenge, the corps members got nervous. The staff member reminded them they knew what they were doing, that she was there for support, and offered some words of encouragement.

Two hours later the corps members walked away from the workshop beaming--not only had they done it, they aced it! The high school students loved the presentation, were inspired by them, and were challenged to make some real changes in their community. Driving home, the group talked about what each of them had done well, and what could be improved next time. Each of them had been given a chance to lead and each was strengthened by the experience.

Other presentations might include a developing a buisness plan for a new community effort or producing a booklet of the class's best work. In each case this structure emphasizes the fact that young people need real skills that are connected to their dreams.