Pointing youth toward change
A group of Harvard undergraduates is working to improve leadership skills among middle and high school youth, hoping to instill in them the idea that changing the world doesn’t have to wait until they’re adults — they can start now. The students are working through the Leadership Institute at Harvard College (LIHC), an undergraduate group, and two subgroups, Yes We Can Lead, which runs weekly workshops at Boston’s Edwards and Gavin middle schools, and Youth Lead the Change!, which took the leadership program on the road in January to the Asian nation of Bhutan, and which is planning a weeklong summer camp for Boston high schoolers in August. Akansha Tarun, a sophomore and co-founder of Youth Lead the Change!, said the leadership curriculum doesn’t just present concepts to students, it asks them to think of ideas for projects on which they can embark that make a change in their schools or communities. For...