In our youth programs, youth 15 and older learn to work with those younger than themselves as mentors and teachers, through training that advances their intellectual and moral capacities.
The Youth Empowerment Program helps youth 15 and older become active protagonists of transformation in their communities. Through a sequence of courses developed by the Ruhi Institute, young people walk a path of service, learning to work with those younger than themselves as mentors and teachers.
Rather than viewing youth as passive recipients of knowledge, the program honors their inherent nobility. As they accompany younger peers, facilitate study, and carry out service projects, youth learn to analyze the social forces around them and channel their energy toward community building. Over time, this builds a pattern of community life with service and unity at its heart.
At the heart of the program is a two-fold purpose: to take charge of one's own intellectual and moral growth and to contribute to the transformation of society. Youth put this purpose into practice by becoming mentors for the Junior Youth Empowerment Program, or teachers for the Children's Class Program.
Training begins in a study circle. With a tutor, youth study a set of materials developed by the Ruhi Institute that help them become promoters of community well-being, exploring concepts related to intellectual and spiritual development inspired by the Bahá'í writings. They are soon accompanied into the field, where they begin animating a junior youth group or teaching a children's class together with their friends.
Being an animator or a children's class teacher means forming true friendships with the junior youth and children they serve. Animators visit families to reflect on what the junior youth are learning, support them in their academic pursuits, and help them read their social reality, reflect on the social forces they face, and design and carry out service projects as a group. Children's class teachers create joyful spaces where children learn through stories, songs, games, and the arts, and work alongside parents in the education of their children.
Along the way, youth also earn community service hours they can use for college applications.
Diana shares how her life changed when she became an animator for a group of middle schoolers.
Young people stand at the forefront of humanity’s movement through this age of transition. They are inheriting a world marked by rapid technological change, social fragmentation, and profound uncertainty, yet also by unprecedented possibilities for cooperation, learning, and collective advancement.
Their aspirations, questions, and capacities will shape the character of the emerging civilization. To navigate this moment, youth need more than technical skills or personal drive; they require environments that nurture clarity of purpose, moral insight, and the ability to contribute meaningfully to the well-being of their communities.
The period of youth is a formative stage in which identity, worldview, and patterns of action take shape. It is a time when the desire to understand the world and to participate in its transformation is especially strong. Many young people find themselves caught between competing messages, conflicting expectations, and social forces that pull toward distraction, cynicism, or disengagement. Supporting youth is not simply a matter of providing services or opportunities; it necessarily involves helping them to develop the capacities that enable them to read their reality with discernment and to act with coherence and purpose. Strive’s Youth Empowerment Program is grounded in this understanding. It seeks to accompany young people as they learn to think critically, to engage in meaningful inquiry, to work collaboratively with others, and to translate their insights into constructive action.
To every generation of youth comes an opportunity to make a contribution to the fortunes of humanity, unique to their time of life. For the present generation, the moment has come to reflect, to commit, to steel themselves for a life of service from which blessings will flow in abundance.
Contact us to find a study circle in your area or to become trained as a tutor.
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