Community Partner : Greenmount East Leadership Project Intern : William Shao Site Supervisor : Isaiah Johnson
What is the Greenmount East Leadership Project ? Greenmount East Leadership Project ( GELP ) provides kids between the ages of 10 and 19 in the Greenmount East area with positive activities and role models . GELP offers activities that promote leadership and life skills , conflict resolution , and positive relationships with peers and adults .
When Isaiah first introduced me to the youth I ’ d be working with , he said I would be here as both a teacher and a student . I remember them looking at me quizzically , as if to say , “ what does Mr . Will have to learn from us ?” Though I did not know the exact answer myself , I hoped it would be something substantive to serve as fuel for future civic engagement . I could not have guessed that they would impart an even more fundamental lesson — one that has brought a newfound clarity to my own life .
Like many of my past revelations , this lesson coalesced through a combination of seemingly disparate and unrelated factors . Since the start of summer I had been trying to wrap my mind around a classic Taoist argument : embrace intellectual simplicity , and abandon knowledge . To even consider accepting this was extremely disconcerting ; I love learning , and could not fathom how knowledge could be harmful to the point that it should be indiscriminately thrown away . The youth , however , soon revealed the hidden piece of wisdom that I had yet to grasp .
It started with me trying to convince the youth to bring home cooked meals for lunch instead of heading to the corner store . I showed them documentaries , statistics , discussed the inevitable health consequences , and racked my brain for more reasons why they needed a diet change . None of it stuck . All the facts , knowledge , and rational arguments I gave went in one ear and right out the other .
What worked instead was absurdly simple . Two cups of oats , four scoops of protein powder , a few spoonfuls of peanut butter , and some water . That was all it took : a protein bar . I rarely see chips or cookies anymore . I had to learn ( the hard way ) that intellectual reasoning always yields to emotional feeling ; tasting delicious , healthy food leaves an indelible mark that words and rhetoric cannot . Learning to forget about the mind and to speak directly to the heart — because that is all that we really listen to — is the single most important discovery we have made at GELP . When it comes to life design , this makes all the difference .
Developed and implemented a six-week Life Design curriculum tailored to youth participants in Baltimore City ’ s YouthWorks program Guided youth through process of habit formation and behavior change aligned with their personal goals Clarified long-term mission and focus of Greenmount East Leadership Project through organizational case study Partnered with the JHU Life Design Lab to explore and prototype possible extensions of the Life Design framework to the broader Baltimore community
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East Leadership Project
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