| THE I CHALLENGE MYSELF APPROACH
I Challenge Myself’s (ICM) programs are founded on the premise that leadership and self esteem start with individuals challenging themselves to create positive change and growth in their lives and also working collectively to bring about positive change to those around them. In the past year, ICM restructured its Urban Bike Tours program, now called Cycling Smarts and strengthened its Urban Youth Health Ambassadors program bringing them closer to reaching their long and short term goals of helping youth develop self efficacy, physically active lifestyles and achieve post secondary success.
Long Term Goals
· ICM participants complete college (or have a good alternative to a college degree).
· ICM youth lead healthy lives.
· ICM youth contribute to society.
Short Term Goals
· ICM participants successfully graduate high school in four years.
· Youth participants meet the challenges that are presented to them through the ICM program (including community service learning projects, physical activity, and academics).
· As students complete these challenges, they experience personal and group success. They strengthen their bodies, develop a greater sense of confidence in their fitness skills and academics, and take on leadership roles.
ICM’s programs employ the following strategies to achieve the above goals
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Provide youth with a high quality physical education/health program from knowledgeable and caring adults.
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Maintain low youth to adult ratios to no more than 25:1.
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Provide youth with opportunities to demonstrate their leadership skills and to shape program activities through paid internships for returning participants and a peer-to-peer instructional approach.
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Provide youth with opportunities to develop public speaking and organizational skillsbyco-leading meetings and workshops.
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Provide opportunities for youth to authentically apply academic concepts in contexts where youth increase their understanding of why this is relevant and feel successful and in control.
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Provide youth with opportunities to learn about different career fields through career exploration workshops at major corporations and institutions and guest speaker conversation series.
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Provide participants with resume writing and job interview workshops.
The above strategies have helped ICM staff and youth achieve the following results
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93% of ICM seniors graduated from high school and are attending college.
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100% of ICM participants have avoided teen parenthood while enrolled in high school.
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Since its program launch in February 2005, ICM has served over 120 students and 70% of participants successfully have completed ICM’s programs.
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For the past 3 summers, 40 students have participated and completed their first one-day 100-mile cycling tour.
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ICM youth have provided health-based workshops ranging from HIV/AIDS prevention, nutrition and anti-smoking to over 300 of their peers ages 6 to 18.
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Since February 2006, ICM has hired 8 returning participants as interns to help co-lead the cycling and service learning programs.
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80% of ICM participants consistently rate ICM programs as being a positive learning experience in their lives.
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Attendance rates for the service learning program have increased from 60% to 80%.
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Attendance rates for the bicycle tours program have increased from 60% to 75%.
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