About Us
Summer Youth Institute (SYI) is a 15-day experience cosponsored by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute. Bringing together rising high school sophomores and juniors, the Institute provides training in leadership and community building as well as civil rights history. It includes workshops and field trips and focuses on providing tools to participants so that they can support local community improvement. At the end of the Institute, students go back to their communities and continue to work with the Winter Institute on joint projects throughout the year.
Primary Tactics:
1. The Welcome Table curriculum, a system using stories to convey and exemplify universal truths, provides a safe space in which participants can learn to listen to and trust each other.
2. Students learn about the past of Mississippi by participating in field trips, speaking with past leaders, reading about history, and watching documentaries. Philadelphia, MS, and the MS Delta provide pilgrimage opportunities, leaders like Gov. William Winter and Myrlie Evers-Williams help connect the past with the present, and books and documentaries help teach a fuller history.
3. Diversity workshops are used to help students think about identity and society. Students learn that all members are crucial to the health of the community.
4. Workshops on leadership, public speaking, organizing, and media help prepare students for their final community projects. Students present their projects at a final banquet ceremony.
Program Dates: June 10 – June 24, 2012
Application Deadline: March 15, 2012
To Apply: Follow the link at the top of the page to fill out and submit the online application. The application includes three short essay questions. We ask that applicants think carefully and deeply before answering these questions since this is the only way we can get to know you.
Field Trips: Students participate in three fields trips to Philadelphia, MS; Greenwood, MS; and Jackson, MS.
Workshops: Students will be expected to participate fully in the Summer Youth Institute. This means doing the assigned reading and writing, being 100% present during all activities, and contributing to all tasks and conversations. Each student has unique and vital talents and stories to share with the group, and it is important that each student does so.
Housing: Students will stay on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS. All meals, including snacks, will be covered by the Institute.
Costs: Due to a generous grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Summer Youth Institute is free of charge to all students.
Transportation: Parents will need to bring their students to the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS, on Sunday, June 10th and plan to pick up their students in Jackson on Saturday, June 23rd. Transportation will not be provided by the Institute.
