Helping to empower Newark’s youths is a top priority of Rutgers University-Newark (RU-N). For more than a decade, RU-N’s Office of University-Community Partnerships (OUCP) has sponsored and launched programs and initiatives that motivate and prepare young people to take charge of their lives boldly and confidently. OUCP’s programs help youths visualize clear pathways to success.

For example, RU Ready for Work (RURFW), arguably OUCP’s most popular endeavor, is a year-round, youth development and work/career-readiness demonstration model for Newark high school students that is held at RU-N. For six weeks during the summer, nearly 60 students are introduced to select careers by RU-N faculty and staff and work as paid interns at more than 25 Newark-based community partner sites to further develop their career-readiness skills.

OUCP works closely with the Newark Workforce Investment Board (NWIB) of the City of Newark to secure work assignments for the students. In addition to the obvious monetary benefits, these internships allow RURFW students to explore prospective careers, network with potential employers, establish meaningful relationships with mentors, gain a realistic perspective on an occupation, and learn a profession or industry’s culture and etiquette.

At a special NWIB fundraising reception, several current and former RURFW students had an opportunity to hone their public-speaking skills when asked to share with NWIB stakeholders and funders their stories of the positive impact RURFW has had on their lives. To show appreciation for these students’ diligence, scholarship, community service, and contribution and commitment to the RURFW program throughout the past year, NWIB Executive Director Amina Bey, along with other NWIB staffers, recently stopped by OUCP to present $200 stipends to five highly motivated participants: high school seniors Grace Appiah (Barringer High School) and Dihzai Bailey (University High School); high school junior Kory West (Marion P. Thomas Charter School); and RURFW alumnae Attiyyah Calloway-Muhammad (senior, Rutgers School of Nursing) and Roxanne Hall (OUCP AmeriCorps VISTA fellow and RU-N alumna). Recognizing that financial hardship is one of many roadblocks on the journey to success, the stipends are intended to defray the cost of books and school supplies incurred by the students and provide overall encouragement. Eager smiles filled the room as NWIB signed and distributed each check.

In addition to programs like RURFW, OUCP sponsors and co-hosts many events with community partners that uplift boys and girls. In October, OUCP hosted the Boys to Leaders FOUNDATION’s Annual Latino Youth Leadership Conference and the Royal Celebration Princess Party. Both events took place on the same day at RU-N’s Paul Robeson Campus Center.

In its third year, the Boys to Leaders FOUNDATION empowers, motivates, and inspires young Latino men by providing leadership training, educational programs, and personal and professional development workshops. Founded by Sara Peña, a concerned single parent of one Latino son, the organization endeavors to awaken and unleash the leadership potential of young Latino men by ensuring they receive the resources needed to succeed academically and professionally.

Approximately 150 individuals, mostly high school students, attended this year’s conference. The day included speeches and workshops for students and parents. Students learned how to interact effectively with law enforcement officers, resolve conflicts respectfully, and comport themselves professionally. The parents’ workshop, delivered in Spanish, focused on the college application and financial aid process. Ramón J. Pineda, senior vice president and general manager of Univision, and Michael J. Plata, president of the New Jersey Hispanic Bar Association, gave powerful speeches while City of Newark Council President Mildred Crump and North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos shared special greetings.

Conference sponsors included: United Way of Essex and West Hudson; PSE&G; Univision; National Water Main Cleaning Company; ASPIRA New Jersey; McManimon Scotland & Baumann; Lambda Sigma Upsilon Fraternity, Inc.; Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Essex, Hudson and Union Counties; Investors Bank; Plata Ferrer Law Group; City of Newark, Newark Police Department; New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Division of Consumer Affairs; RU-N Latin@ Studies Working Group; New Jersey Senator Teresa M. Ruiz; and Councilman Anibal Ramos.

Several doors away from the Latino Youth Leadership Conference, OUCP welcomed 25 girls, ages three to seven, and their parents, guardians, and mentors to the Royal Celebration Princess Party. The party is a fun, festive way to introduce the girls to proper etiquette, engage them in conversation about friendship, sisterhood, and unity, and broach career opportunities. It helps to remind the girls that in addition to being beautiful internally and externally, they are bright and therefore entitled to aspire to be tomorrow’s doctors, lawyers, educators, and legislators.

Disney character Cinderella served as the special guest and hostess of the gathering and, assisted by RU-N students and community volunteers entertained the girls with songs and stories and encouraged them to share their career goals. Each girl received a Cinderella costume donated by the Disney Store at Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, New Jersey, as well as princess-themed books, tote bags, dolls, toys, and other gifts.

The Royal Celebration Princess Party is a collaboration among OUCP, the Black Cotton Foundation, and Jumpstart, an early literacy enhancement program that employs 36 RU-N students. The Black Cotton Foundation is a community-based organization that promotes and produces events that impact the community positively and educates people through observation and participation. Children are its primary target demographic. The princess party girls reside in Newark, Irvington, and East Orange, and represented Samuel L. Berliner Public School and 13th Avenue / Dr. MLK School, each in Newark, and the Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP). YAP is a non-profit agency that provides non-residential, community-based programs to vulnerable young people, adults, and families in the United States and abroad.

“We recognize that to prepare these young people for future success we must go beyond improving academic skills and performance. We must employ a more multifaceted approach to promoting their development including enhancing their leadership skills, providing positive role models, cultivating their sense of self-efficacy, exposing them to the broad array of possibilities, and then providing the skills and knowledge to successfully navigate this new landscape that has been introduced to them,” comments Dr. Diane Hill, assistant chancellor for university-community partnerships.

Hill further notes that OUCP’s sponsorship of these types of programs on campus and utilization of RU-N students (many of whom are Newark natives) as staff, mentors, and volunteers coincide with OUCP’s strategy to encourage local area children and youths to recognize RU-N as a welcoming destination to pursue a pathway to future success.

Visit the following websites to learn more information about the featured organizations:

OUCP at http://oucp.newark.rutgers.edu/
Newark Workforce Investment Board at http://newarkNNWIB.org/
Boys to Leaders Foundation at http://boystoleadersfoundation.org/
Black Cotton Foundation at http://www.blackcottonfoundation.org/
Jumpstart at http://www.jstart.org/

More about the Office of University-Community Partnerships (OUCP):

OUCP exists to support Rutgers University-Newark’s (RU-N) anchor institution mission and agenda as a comprehensive and progressive university deeply committed to engage in “public work that taps, engages, and develops the civic agency, talents, and capacities of everyone, inside and outside the university.” Included among the array of professional services and expertise OUCP offers to achieve its mission and vision are: cultivating meaningful partnerships between the university and community members; expanding and enhancing opportunities for student community engagement; and fostering engaged urban research collaborations that create and incubate innovative, evidence-based programs and place-based initiatives.

(Top photo: (front row, l-r) Sheronia Rogers, Dr. Diane Hill, Amina Bey, Lesley Leslie; (back row, l-r) Tolu Lanrewaju, Adriana Crawford, Kory West, Roxanne Hall, Grace Appiah, Davetta Lane-Shakir, Nicole Vazquez-Wise; photo credit: Ferlanda Fox Nixon) (not shown: Dihzae Bailey and Attiyyah Calloway-Muhammad)

(Middle right photo of Miguel Anthony Cardona by Shizelle Small of Chapter Avenue Productions)

(Bottom left photo of Christian-Dior Davis by Jennifer Bonet of JennyB Occasions)