In The News
Urban League Helping Teens Learn Lessons
Columbia (WLTX) -- Summertime usually means a lot of kids with nothing to do. Now, Columbia's Urban League has a program to help those teens learn something and gain work experience that will help them in the future.
"It's best to have everything in order and in place so you can hurry up and give it to them so they can leave," says 15-year-old Dion Tyler of his job.
It may seem like an important job for a 15-year-old: making sure the men and women of the Columbia Fire Department have everything they need. But for Tyler, it's all a learning experience. "Once you get out in real life and the workforce after you've graduated from school and what not, it's no joke and you need to take it seriously," he says.
That's exactly what brought Tyler and his co-workers to the Urban League's Youth Leadership Development Program under League president J.T. McLawhorn. "For many young people who have gone through traumatic experiences, helping them to be able to engage with people will teach them about confidence," he says.
The program is geared toward kids in foster care and others that may be disadvantaged. It's a group that Urban League officials say often doesn't have many role models to teach them about success. "They have been told they are not all that they can be. We try to teach them that you are somebody," McLawhorn says.
Tyler has seen first-hand what's expected. "They taught us how to present ourselves [and] that you only get one first impression, so make the best of it," he says.
Participants also get the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that come as rewards. "I actually got to simulate a fire... One of the captains put fake smoke throughout the room and we had to crawl and find our way throughout the room," he says.
Of course, it's all in an effort to show them the biggest reward of all. He says, "They treat me with respect and I give the same back."
The teens at the fire department usually work for four hours a day, five days a week. The jobs they have range from equipment management, filing and even helping Fire Marshals with inspections.
Sydney Cummins
scummins@wltx.gannett.com
WLTX-19
