“Support Our Youth” Mentoring Program

Mentoring has been a well proven method of providing help to others especially young children. Those receiving help need not be rich or poor or of any special religion, creed or color, they only need a desire to learn as best they can. The mentors only provide some guidance to support those that want or need help. In the case of a youth, a very important part of mentoring is the approval of the parent or guardian that maintains the livelihood of the one being mentored. Mentoring is not intended solely for the young, however that is the focus of the program that I am advocating.

The primary reason for implementing this initiative is to focus attention onto an area of learning that has missed our youth far to long. My initiative focus is on teaching “Leadership Skill” to the general youth of America. When anyone investigates or reviews what is being taught in our public or private schools leadership skills is not on the agenda. This failure has roots in a fundamental idea that leadership is learned ONLY later in life when you are involved in a business, your community, in the military, pastor of a church or while working with a civic organization or, leadership is not taught at all but it’s a natural born instinct. The truth is leadership skills can not only be taught but needs to be taught at an early age. For example, most of the well known leaders of the past were in fact taught by their elders at an early age. Of course there are examples of “natural born” leaders that learned their skills on the playground or were quick on their toes and were in the right place at the right time. However, there is room to say teaching leadership skills can be organized in a manner that does not require a boy’s military school to accomplish.

Also, there is a misconception about the need for leadership shills. The misunderstanding lies in the fact that most people believe leadership skills are needed only when involved with groups of people such as the military or a business when in fact everyone should have some understanding of the basics of these skills because it helps in your daily life. Having a home, a family, even working for someone else is accomplished much easier by having leadership skills to guide you through the trials of life in general.

So how does anyone get or obtain these skills of life? Make no mistake about this subject, being a leader is a skill and a skill that can be learned and that is the point of this initiative, to support our youth by teaching them leadership skills.

There are presently organizations that have programs that work around the edges of this subject, such as The Boy and Girl Scouts of America, the YMCA and YWCA, and etc. However, none of these teaches the specific skill of leadership accept for one, the Civil Air Patrol.

The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) is an organization that is national in scope and works with the youth of America and targets leadership skills as one of its main objectives. This organization has been part of America’s landscape since 1948 but has not gain enough notice due to its misconception of flying is its main objective. While flying and being involved with air rescue missions was in fact their beginning it has grown in its scope to working with our youth to educate them in leadership skills.

Now the question could be asked, “So what is this about a mentoring program initiative”? The simple answer is the need for mentors that already have leadership skills. Many of the cadets that join the CAP do not have access to anyone that already has leadership skills except the initial leadership of the CAP organization, which is not enough.

The initial search for leaders to be mentors is from other organizations that have leaders as well as business owners, leaders of civic organizations and community as well as those that have an interest in being a good role model for a young person in need of help with their future.

As you no doubt may realize I am already a CAP member and work with the young members we have but I am also a member of another organization, the “Air Force Association” (f="http://www.afa.org/">AFA). I am the president of the local AFA chapter in Wilmington, North Carolina (Cape Fear Chapter 366) and presently developing a “pilot” program (as in new program, not flying), as a new initiative for AFA. AFA supports education in our schools system and provide scholarships to teachers in math and science as a way to contribute to helping our youth. Most of our members are or have been in the military and most where leaders in their careers. Our local chapter members contribute time and money to support organization that is part of our agenda that changes as the needs change. My initiative is to combine the leaders in AFA with the training offered in the CAP.

If you are a leader or want to be part of a new initiative to support our youth by mentoring in leadership skills, then contact me at capefearmentoring@att.net.