Founded in 1982, Y.O.U. occupies a unique niche in Cuyahoga County: youth workforce development. We serve teens in poverty and therefore at risk, both in-school and out-of-school youth. We focus on the areas of greatest poverty in Cuyahoga County: the City of Cleveland, specifically its inner city, where 75% of the City's children live at or below poverty; and East Cleveland, where almost 44% of all children live below the poverty line.

Since 1982, we have served over 150,000 youth...

We help youth escape poverty in the most direct way possible: through education and a career. We mentor youth so they stay in high school and earn a diploma; we help youth explore career paths of the future; we encourage youth to get as much education as possible; and we help them through the process of applying to college and obtaining the financial aid they need to attend.

Our job placement services reinforce the importance of academic success. First, youth eager to get part-time jobs learn that employers expect academic skills, namely language skills and numeracy. Next youth discover that to earn more and get better jobs, they need at the very least a high school diploma. Y.O.U. recruits employers willing to interview and hire pre-screened youth for entry-level jobs. We have grown our employer network to include more employers, especially in careers of the future, and to provide other workforce and career-related experiences. Employers offer job shadowing experiences, conduct mock interviews, provide internships in career fields of the future, and participate in our Youth Career Olympics. Our programs are geared to what employers tell us they need and want.
 

Carol Rivchun, President 
Our services evolve in response to the needs of urban youth, our employers, and our schools. For example, we introduced academic retention programs in response to two trends:

• a high school diploma has become a minimum requirement for all entry-level jobs; and
• at the same time, over 60% of youth in Cleveland were dropping out of high school.

Our academic retention programs serve the youth most in need; last year 83% of the youth in these Y.O.U. programs graduated from high school, and most of them went on to college.

How you can participate:

Y.O.U. serves youth ages 14-19 who come from pockets of poverty around Cuyahoga County.

If you would like to participate in one of our programs as a volunteer, we always need tutors to help our youth improve reading and math skills. You could be a guest speaker on careers or life skills, conduct a mock interview for one of our youth, or interview pre-screened youth for entry-level jobs.