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Youths Leading Youths
posted (July 13, 2016)

We're well into the summer break that means that school children will be attending all kinds of camps.

Today, we found one in the Fabers Road Area. It's a sports camp organized by the YMCA, and though the organization's staffs are in charge, they're using teen coaches to run it. We spoke to the YMCA Executive Director about the benefits of utilizing youths to help at-risk kids:

Dr. Clara Cuellar - Exec. Dir, YMCA
"There are lots of reasons to build youth coaches. One I think that in the volunteer world it's more difficult sometimes for adults to find a time given how busy our society is and so this way I can have an adult come in 1 hour a day during my training session for 5 days they can find that time more experts and we did that. And then there are teen coaches, they love sport so now they are giving back in an area or learning how to teach in something they enjoy. So it's fun for them but while it's work at the same time and we just find that lots of our youths out there don't have a summer job but want a summer responsibility that allows them to grow without feel laborious. After all it is a break from so they join our camp, we train them, they do a week of training and then every day they come an hour early so we go over the daily plan and after a year of this they are ready to start teaching another group and two, three years we can certify them of coaches on their own by the time they are hitting 17."

Aidan Villanueva - Teen Coach, SJC Student
"Actually it's fun right, of course you have your bad eggs now and then right but you just have to know how to deal with them. We are also learning a lot us as the coaches are learning right. You need to have patience and you need to know how to deal with the kids. Just seeing the kids they smile, seeing them having fun with and also with us the coaches."

Jamar Andrews - Summer Camp Participant
"To shoot you have to aim at the middle of the rim and then you shoot you have to make your wrist snap. I believe in myself and I believe I can catch it."

Reporter
"What do you do each time?"

Jamar Andrews - Summer Camp Participant
"You always look in the middle of the rim before you shoot."

The camp runs up until next week Thursday.

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