Description
We’ll explore how young people in your neighborhood can be empowered and equipped to bring innovative solutions to the problems facing their neighborhood that they care about most. We’ll be looking at the processes that have guided successful ventures launched by middle and high school students in an under-resourced, urban neighborhood in Kansas City. Young people have created a storefront business in an empty, blighted storefront as an afterschool hangout and are working with city governments to bring portable pools to communities without public pools. We’ll also explore how this can become a model for neighborhood-based youth ministry that begins with a mission to bring about redemption in strategic and sustained ways rather than sporadic, one-time events.
Kurt Rietema the Senior Director of YF Neighborhood at Youthfront where he lives and works in a diverse, under-resourced neighborhood of Kansas City. His work includes youth social entrepreneurship, short-term mission, community development and creating just housing and lending partnerships for immigrants.
