On Aug. 6, 14 students gathered at the Island Oasis in Austin to celebrate completing a summer youth cohort. This year was the third iteration of the program, where young people learn leadership and civic engagement skills around the Island neighborhood of Austin.
Throughout the 8-week Youth Connector Cohort, participants conversed with each other and their neighbors through porch hangs, team building activities and community circles where they discussed topics like self-care and mental health.
“We wanted to intentionally frame it as a learning cohort that’s focused on social connection among peers . . . In today’s world, with youth obviously drawn to devices and screens and phones, we really want to make this a face-to-face, in-real-life, relationship building for young people,” Nate Tubbs, an Island resident, told Austin Weekly News. “How are we good neighbors and how are we known to the people who live around us?”
One Youth Connector Cohort participant, Zoey, said “Being part of this program helped me learn more about my community and gave me a chance to connect with my neighbors.”
“We believe that, by building connections between people in our hyperlocal neighborhood, we can make it safer and more welcoming for all,” said Sonya Rich, the Youth Connector Cohort’s program coordinator who helped launch a version of the initiative in 2023, during the graduation ceremony on Aug. 6. “By learning about what needs and what skills we have together, we can build power and support each other going forward.”
Though it’s the third iteration of the group, this year’s participants were in more of a cohort than the work experience program put on in previous years, and they focused more on social connection and neighborhood support. The group was also governed by the neighborhood-created Roosevelt-Austin Mutual Aid organization, instead of the Island Civic Association as it has been in past years.
“One of the reasons we reorganized is to give it a life of its own,” said Tubbs, who served as the Island Civic Association’s president for four years and remains active with the organization. He added that RAMA was largely created to make the cohort its own entity and for budgeting purposes.
The first Youth Ambassador program was in the summer of 2023. That winter, Island Civic Association volunteers discussed how flyers were an effective way to get information out to neighbors and how local kids could use more summer opportunities. In the summer, six G.R. Clark Elementary School students worked during their school break to organize events and pass out flyers.
“We started this program two summers ago to try to engage our community’s youth in a positive experience of community connection and service during the summer. Built all by neighborhood volunteers, we shared our time and expertise to create a space of positivity and creativity where we could grow together,” Rich said at the Aug. 6 ceremony.
Last year, 13 students were a part of the program, during which they attended workshops and organized events with a community service focus.
This program largely launched out of the lack of recreational and volunteer opportunities in the Island. Though technically a part of Austin, the neighborhood is separated by the Eisenhower Expressway to the north and industrial buildings to the east. On its west, it touches Oak Park, and its south side connects with Cicero. Less than 2,000 people live in the Island, according to WBEZ, or about 500 households, Tubbs estimates.
“We’re all really proud of this program because it is an example of by us, for us,” Tubbs said. He gave props to Rich and other adults who helped with the cohort. “That itself was an example of what we’re trying to show the youth, that when we’re connected and collaborating, we can achieve some great things that we couldn’t have done alone.”
Tubbs added that he hopes the Youth Connector Cohort continues next year, and that it will expand.
“Everyone from our leading adult volunteers to the youth themselves to the families were very much excited about the possibility that it’s happening again,” Tubbs said. “Several who have been in the program for more than one year specifically stated that they liked the shift to the cohort model,” he said, adding that four of this year’s participants were also in the group the past two summers. “We really leaned on them in some new ways, where they were taking up leadership [roles]. They had some more responsibilities, and we hope to grow the program in that direction.”
Currently, the Youth Connector Cohort targets 12-to-15-year-olds, mostly so those students can put the experience on applications for schools or jobs. But Tubbs said he can see the group expanding its age range down the line.
“We also have heard from youth in the neighborhood who are not yet old enough for the program that they are excited that they could potentially participate in this in the future,” Tubbs said.
