At our public all-girls high school in Jamaica, Queens, where 70% of students qualify for free lunch, my co-founders, classmates, and I have performed reasonably well on standardized tests, often just enough to pass. However, compared to friends in elite Manhattan private schools, we notice stark differences in academic opportunities and resources. They achieve higher standardized test scores and have access to advanced placement courses our school doesn’t offer. 

Upon receiving our PSAT scores in junior year, my co-founders, Maryam Karim and Edlyn Awedoba, and I discussed the educational disparities in our community. We realized that by not having access to essential resources, such as tutoring and advanced coursework, we were being held back from numerous opportunities. This prompted us to delve deeper into the issue, considering effective solutions to spare our younger siblings from facing the same challenges in the future. 

In NYC, minority groups like immigrants and the homeless often lack support in education due to being overlooked. Private tutors, costing $40-75 per hour on average, are unaffordable for many, especially low-income and homeless individuals. Our project aims to address the root causes of these challenges and prevent homeless, low-income, and newly immigrated youth from becoming entrapped in an endless cycle of disadvantage. 

We officially launched Youth-Led Support in February 2023 at PS 86Q, the elementary school across the street from our school. With the assistance of our school's assistant principal, we met with the assistant principal of PS 86Q to discuss the logistics of how we would want our program to run. It was decided that our program would run during our lunch breaks, allowing us to cross the street and tutor for 45 minutes every two days of the school week. To facilitate this, we recruited 30 classmates from our grade to volunteer as tutors, offering them volunteer hours in return. Before they could begin tutoring, we provided them with training to ensure they were equipped to assist the students effectively, as these students often require more support than the average student. Once trained, we launched our program, integrating seamlessly into the classrooms during these designated times when the main teacher would supervise independent work. This allowed us to provide one-on-one tutoring to the students who needed it most, ensuring they received personalized attention while their peers worked independently. Throughout the past school year, we were able to reach 100 students at PS 86Q, and our students demonstrated an average improvement of two reading and math levels with our assistance. 

The next three steps of action for YLS are as follows: 

First: Officially register our organization to establish legitimacy and credibility for when we want to expand our program to other schools in our community. 

Second: Initiate our next program for 2024 by establishing a chapter within our high school and renewing our partnership with the elementary school we collaborated with last year. 

Third: Purchase materials for our tutors to utilize during after-school sessions, ensuring they have the necessary resources to effectively support their students; Purchase more translation devices for students who are new to the country. 

There are two members of my team, Maryam and Edlyn. The three of us work together in brainstorming ideas for Youth-Led Support and working to get grants and put our organization out there. Currently, we don't have specific roles, but we all go by the co-founders of Youth-Led Support. Edlyn works in communication-- sending out emails, while Maryam works in our designs and social media presence.