City Year ”unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service, giving them skills and opportunities to change the world.” As part of their professional development training, City Year members are required to develop a leadership statement that defines their year and their goals. 

Check out their blog post on the topic here. 

A great idea for considering your next AmeriCorps term, your next step post-VISTA and/or to use if you’re planning on staying in higher ed as you work with student leadership groups!

DID YOU KNOW?

As an alternative to the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award, AmeriCorps VISTA members may choose to take a post-service cash stipend instead.

Only AmeriCorps VISTA alumni who choose the stipend and have student loans may be eligible for up to 15% cancellation on certain types of loans (*I called VMSU & they said its Perkins Loans). To determine what student loans may be eligible for cancellation and to receive forms, contact the U.S. Department of Education at 1-800-433-3243. AmeriCorps VISTA members who choose the education award may not claim a partial cancellation.

Check it out here. 

1. Nearly half the world – over three billion people – live on less than $2.50 a day.
2. According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day due to poverty – that’s 18 children dying every minute, a child every three seconds.
3. About 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
4. For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world: 640 million are without adequate shelter, 400 million do not have access to safe water, 270 million do not have access to health services.
5. About 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized.
6. About 1.6 billion people – a quarter of humanity – live without electricity.

Head to Do Something to get the rest!

Awesome transcript of a panel discussion from the 2011 Millenial Donor Summit:

As part of the rising generation, what do you see as far as myths about Millennials?

Wendy: First, there’s this idea that Millennials want to go their own way and be outside institutions. But what we found was that they had much higher trust in institutions than genx and boomers. It is not so much a distrust, but more that they really want to be part of the change. There’s also the selfish factor. I’m guilty of calling our community on the social web selfish because what it means is that anything we put out, it needs to be useful for them. They need to take it with them.

David: There’s greater trust with Millennials than other generations. Are there really that many differences between generations? I just had the honor of being part of a new leaders group studying how different generations were leading in the work force and we found there were lots of differences between where people were in life. For example, if two people had just had kids, regardless of age, they had more similarities than just age. It also feels that sometimes genx is being forgotten in this conversations. The Millennial generation has more of the perspective that “the leader is me” instead of waiting for the world to change.

To read the whole transcript, head here.