provide youth with afterschool programs to help keep them off streetsVirsa

Our afterschool Jr. Leadership program encourages all its attendees to maximize their potential. Through projects and various discussions/activities we provide youth not only a safe, fun place to go but also somewhere they have responsible mentors to help them in their non academic lives. We have had over 500 students participate in our program and it continues to grow.

Some of the skills that we are constantly helping these youth develop include:

- Leadership
- Self esteem
- Community involvement
- Team building/working effectively in a team
- Self worth
- Confidence

Without programs such as our Jr. Leadership program many of these youth don’t have a place or environment where these skills are obtained therefore forcing them to turn to other means of fulfillment such as violence. Most participants join voluntarily however often school counselors refer students they feel would benefit from our program.

Virsa is proactive by providing preventative programming. We recognize there are gaps in role models for many youth today and our goal is to fill this gap with our Jr. Leadership program. Our facilitators and volunteers are passionate positive role models, most of who are either enrolled in or have completed post-secondary education. These mentors have the ability to make a positive impact in the lives of these youth. However, the aim of this program is to enable these youth to become strong independent leaders. Often youth do not have the opportunity to actualize their potential – mentorship will be the vehicle through which these students can achieve this. With a large, positive impact at an early stage our goal is to direct these youth towards a positive lifestyle which will carry on into their future and enable them to become strong, positive leaders themselves and benefit the community by doing so.