Project Listen - High School Student Engagement

Project Listen is an out-of-school time academic, leadership, and civic engagement program for at-risk students from the Boston Public Schools.  Through the program, students develop the leadership, civic engagement, and creative skills necessary to create socially conscious arts and media that are intended to rally their peers to respond to issues affecting urban youth in Boston. 

Urban youth living in poverty often experience gaps in in-school and out-of-school learning and development, and thus face significant obstacles to developing the attributes and resiliency necessary to succeed academically, socially, emotionally, and professionally.  Project Listen targets students who are unlikely to have participated in traditional leadership development programs and yet have life experiences that suggest they would benefit most from such an opportunity.  For example, Project Listen students may be in foster care, court involved, homeless or on the verge of homelessness, or struggling significantly in school.  Yet, they have the desire to succeed and become agents of positive change in their schools and communities.  Freedom House believes our students often have the most to lose, but also the most to gain.

Project Listen Program Components Include:

• Academic case management and tutoring support throughout the year.
• A fall civic engagement and leadership development curriculum that builds students’ personal and advocacy skills as student leaders and youth organizers.
• Artist residencies that strengthen students’ creative abilities and awareness of the arts as a tools for social change.
• Development of a student-led campaign – traditionally related to school reform –winter and spring based on the skills gained through the fall curriculum.
• Implementation of the campaign through the Community Awareness Project that is implemented during the Project Listen Summer Action and Leadership Intensive,
• Production and presentation of the annual Creative Forum. The year’s Community Awareness Project culminates in a presentation to the community using socially conscious art and media.

The program operates from 3:00 – 6:00, Monday through Friday.

The Project Listen Summer Action and Leadership Program
An intensive program which operates from 3:00 – 8:00 p.m. for seven weeks during the summer. During the summer intensive, students have paid positions as cultural organizers using both the creative and organizing skills gained during the academic year to create a production that deals with an issue affecting school reform. The community at large is invited to take part in a post show discussion and consider ways to advocate for change in the issue addressed by the creative forum.

Project Listen participants pursuing college are encouraged to transition into Freedom House’s PUSH College Success Program beginning their senior year in high school to help them access, get into, and succeed in college.

Project Listen Program Objectives

Outputs:

• Students will participate in 15 out of school time program hours per week.
• Students will homework help and tutoring five days per week.
• Students will participate in civic engagement and leadership development training curriculum.
• Students will develop a campaign that will be shared with the community through the Creative Forum presentation.

Participant Outcomes:
Short Term – 80 to 100% of students who regularly participate in Project Listen will:

• Attain school attendance of 80% or higher.
• Achieve and maintain a 2.5 GPA or higher.
• Develop and implement the yearly community awareness project.
• Create and execute a personal success plan.
• Increase their awareness of and appreciation for civic engagement.

Long Term – 90% of students:

• Be promoted to the next grade and/ or graduate from high school.
• Remain actively involved in civic engagement opportunities in their schools and/or communities.

If you would like to learn more about the program, please call (617) 318-1401
or download a copy of our Project Listen application.

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