Just As I Am Youth Empowerment Inc.

JAIA'S MISSION IS TO PARTNER AND CO-CREATE WITH YOUTH IN ORDER TO PROMOTE MINDFUL, HEALTHY, AND SAFE COMMUNITIES THROUGH TRANSORMATIVE PERSONAL AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT.

Our Vision is to develop conscious, confident leaders nationally and globally through youth-led and

Goal One: A Train the trainer program will be designed to scale the reach of JAIA's work. It will enable schools and other youth-serving organizations to have access to our curriculum.

Goal Two: Peer Educator Program. Youths 16-24 will receive experiential training in mental health literacy and personal development. They will co-facilitate workshops in person, online, and on social media.

Goal Three: Management goals are 1) to build out and diversify our staff (adding communications and finance coordinators), and 2) to automate our onboarding for program participants as well as staff.

The organization has paid for the program director to attend a Dare to Lead train the trainer (30 hours) series ( Sept 2022) that will impact not only board and senior leadership habits but also the leadership curriculum for our youth leaders. Also, in October 2022 CEO was chosen and approved to attend a 6-week training for Executives of Color with a focus on Fundraising. Our Youth Educator was sent to a conflict resolution training for leaders where she will turn key information to our Programs team.

JAIA has adapted all of our 6 programs to online during the pandemic. We are now perfecting hybrid education. JAIA also adapted to receiving larger grants in the last year, which meant onboarding new staff and consultants and expanding from a 2-3 person team to an 8-member team within one year. We adapted because of our volunteer consultants, who supported us in interviewing, role/ responsibility charts, rubrics and evaluation tools, and lots of planning time. Partnerships helped as well to guide us and carry some of the weight.