The youth of Stop the Violence Indianapolis, Inc. completed a full summer of learning and fun over six weeks during our career enrichment camp. The high school age teenagers had the opportunity to:
- Visit Indiana Supreme Court during Law and Policy week
- Fly airplanes during aviation week
- Create a cool safety bike life for youth during Architect week
- Visit Horton’s in Fishers and IUPUI during Engineering Week
- Met healthcare professionals during Healthcare Week
Often time’s youth in the urban areas of Indianapolis are left out of the equation of authentic opportunity – especially Black Males. There are many different reasons for that reality. The career opportunities that are most available to urban youth are usually DOA – Dead on Arrival. Which is why Stop the Violence Indianapolis, Inc., teamed up with CAFÉ and several other organizations to offer several opportunities through out the summer that helped to enhance and advance urban youth.
Highlighting one of the organizations that helped with the summer camps is; Indy ACE Camp led by Ryan Lynch – A Pilot for Republic Airways. Lynch inspired the youth, raised their awareness and gave our youth hope in the aviation field by introducing them to an array of high tech careers in anticipation that the youth would consider pursuing a career in aviation.
The weeklong experience was an excellent opportunity for our youth to meet with a very diverse group of other students across the Indianapolis area, share career goals, network, and build life long relationships.
Indianapolis ACE is uniquely positioned as an informal HASTEM educator to leverage human assets and resources to impact the community in a manner previously unseen. The mission of Indy ACE Academy is not to make all of our student’s pilots, but to make them aware of the potential for greatness within them. The Indy ACE Academy team members’ and external affiliations provided out youth with access to a vast network of airlines, government agencies, universities, fraternal and community-based organizations, school systems, branches of the United States Armed Forces, medical boards, and other outreach organizations. These relationships have been leveraged by aligning programs already in existence with a new approach to implementation, resulting in a collaborative union that achieves tangible and measurable results.
As part of Indy ACE mission and by exposing our youth to the Indy ACE Academy, one of our youth was offered an internship at Rolls Royce after visiting their facility at the Indianapolis Airport.
The youth is a” C” average high school student in Indianapolis. His mother has always been concerned that he would have a difficult time getting into college if he did not improve his grades. Needless to say, he thrived in a setting that was more conducive to his learning style and has continued to flourish.
