Next Century Youth, Inc. was founded and received its 501(c) 3 designation in August 2004. The Founder, Principals, Board of Directors and all Associates connected with this organization share the motto as indicated via the logo “Creating Options”.

This motto simply means that this organization was founded based on a large number of youth who are often viewed differently not just because of their background or environment, but many times simply because of their spoken views and perspectives on life, all as a result of their personal exposures. Many times, a youth with limited exposure struggle when taken out of their comfortable environment, but NCY, Inc. believes in mixing them with unfamiliar environments all in an effort to allow their own true leadership qualities to surface. In those cases where the leadership characteristics do not surface, we are there to help them in making those right choices. This specific assistance comes from the many volunteers who mentor whether on the basketball court, who provide guidance as they struggle with peer pressures in school, and are there for the youth when they are forced to make tough decisions that will impact their lives.

Quite often teachers and superiors have difficulty understanding their creative and innovative views. This has often led to their being labeled as not focused and possessing behavioral problems. Many of these youth are destined into a track reflective throughout the balance of their school years as youth who are misguided and misdirected, many having been told that they will never amount to anything.

It is our belief that these youth do bring tremendous value. Thus our challenge is to extract and present this “not so obvious” value and reinforce the confidence that they are a unique and high potential individual, which should allow them to receive the same benefits and opportunities as others.

Next Century Youth, Inc. was founded to create programs that focus on and allow such youth an opportunity to have real options for their future.

How do we do it? In a very non-traditional way. We focus on those areas that are considered non-traditional careers for these youth. Also, we will focus on more vocational type academic programs for youth that they currently are not getting from their middle or high school academic courses. All youth are not cut out to be a four-year college graduate who goes off to further their education or employment careers within the confines of an employee/employer relationship. There are many youth who are more hands on and who would prefer the more vocational type jobs, including the entrepreneurial arena. This is where Next Century Youth comes in. What a revelation, right? And just think, this doesn’t even consider the fact that these vocational areas are where our society and world should consider placing more emphasis on based on the economic and industrial needs in our world – yet the teaching in these areas are few and far between today within our schools.

In today’s world, good business sense teaches us to be steps ahead of the present. In order for Next Century Youth, Inc. to do this, we must look at the trends of the world. With so many companies outsourcing products and services overseas, we must not just talk to our youth in terms of how to become a pilot. Instead, we should be teaching them every facet of Aviation, so that they can determine if their interest reside in flying a plane, working on a plane or owning a fleet of airplanes. Our youth must not only see the automobile as a luxury item you obtain when you get your first job, but instead, what are all of the areas associated within such an industry. How do I carve out a sustaining niche within such an industry that allows me to sustain my business when the sales or production of vehicles diminish, allowing me to fall back on the maintenance side. This is Entrepreneur and Leadership at its best.

Next Century Youth plans ahead. We don’t just link and put programs in place to address these non-traditional industries, but we create partnerships with businesses to ensure that our youth get the full picture. Creating on-the-job training, internships and even full-time employment does much of this.

You say, these are great programs but how do you get the youth to the door. We have a non-traditional means of addressing these youth – in fact we refer to it as speaking their language. We learned this from our Youth Board Members. We know that there are things that immediately get the interest of these youth. Athletic programs are one such means. By bringing youth into a program with an athletic component (which we use as both a draw and incentive), we develop commitment, a partnership and even accountability. They must meet certain expectations to benefit from the typical fun things such as participating in a basketball camp, training or league.

Do we have all of the answers? Absolutely not, however, we are forward thinking enough to know that like it or not, these youth will be a factor in our next century, so it behooves us to solicit, acknowledge and embrace their ideas in an effort to truly create the right options for the future. They know better than we how to get their interest.