ENGLEWOOD — Dominic Smith, 17, was "ecstatic" when he learned he won a trip to India this summer.
The Urban Prep Academy student is participating in a new educational initiative for young men of color living in Chicago. Through a three-year, $200,000 grant given to the nonprofit World Learning, Dominic and three other Chicago students will have the opportunity to visit either India or South Africa.
The recipients will first receive leadership training in Washington, D.C. and then spend time abroad. Before returning home, they will visit Brattleboro, Vermont, where World Learning has offices.
Smith, a Chatham resident, attends Urban Prep Academies’ Englewood campus, which just announced that six of its students are Gates Millennium Scholars. The senior said he is “grateful” and looking forward to the trip.
“When they first called me, of course I was ecstatic, like, ‘Dang, I’m really going to India,’” he said, adding that he wants to learn how to become a better leader.
The other three students selected from Chicago include Joseph Wilkerson, from the Urban Prep West campus in Tri-Taylor. He will travel to South Africa. Cameron Woods, a student at St. Ignatius College Prep in Little Italy, will go to India and Khary Armster, who attends Whitney Young on the Near West Side, will go to South Africa.
World Learning’s program, The Experiment in International Living, seeks to advance leadership in more than 60 countries through education and development programs. The Experiment launched two new leadership summer programs this year for high school students — Leadership Institute South Africa and Leadership Institute India. For the next three years, four male Chicago students of color will be selected to spend four days in Washington, D.C., four weeks in the host country and three days in Brattleboro, Vermont. Each student's expenses are covered through the $200,000 grant from the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation.
Participating in this study abroad opportunity will expose the students to an ongoing global dialogue, as well as include them in it, said Aaron Morehouse, the program’s director.
In addition, another 30 students from across the country are also going abroad as a part of the program, he said. That includes Khalia Little, also a student at Whitney Young.
Half will travel to India and learn about public health and community development. The other 15 participants will fly to South Africa where the focus will be on youth leadership in peace, politics and human rights.
The goal is for students to find ways to foster change in their own communities. In fact, the program requires the participants to develop and implement a project in their community when they return.
“It doesn’t have to be about global health or peace, politics and human rights in South Africa. It’s really recognizing what a particular community’s need is and taking action within the community and with the community to address that need,” Morehouse said.
For Smith, who is involved in his school’s poetry and rap/hip-hop clubs, he hopes this program will help him become a better leader, he said. He wants to use music to unite his community.
Smith said he has witnessed too many kids he grew up with following the wrong crowd in high school.
“I just saw them fall through the cracks, they weren’t following their own minds and seeing that kind of hurt me,” he said.
Witnessing that loss of self-identity, along with the violence, has motivated Dominic.
“Seeing that makes me wonder like, what is a leader? How can I teach these people how to be a leader? Before I do that, I have to learn myself,” he said.
He has plans to attend college and possibly major in business. His hope is to also find a way to bring more black-owned businesses into the community.
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