Mentoring Positive, a youth empowerment organization in Madison, is strengthening the health of its neighborhood and community. Through their WPP Community Impact Grant, Mentoring Positives will expand and evaluate The Positive Path, their combined youth programming initiatives, open to K-12 students in Madison’s Darbo neighborhood. Through this programming, Mentoring Positives promotes social cohesion, youth health and well-being by focusing on building trusting relationships, introducing social-emotional learning and developing life skills through mentoring, athletics and social entrepreneurship.
The Challenge
Darbo is one of nine distressed neighborhoods in Madison, segregated by income, race and ethnicity. A 2017 Health Impact Assessment for the Darbo-Worthington-Starkweather Neighborhood highlighted how inadequate social networks and support led to chronic illness, heart disease, mental illness, youth death rates and infant mortality. “Inadequate social connectedness and empowerment” was named as one of the priority issues impacting health, along with the crime rate and built environment.
Mentoring Positives, a youth empowerment organization in Madison, Wisconsin , is addressing the need for greater social cohesion and empowerment by strengthening the health of its Darbo neighborhood and community through its focus on building relationships with youth, between youth and between youth and the community. Their youth programming initiatives, The Positive Path, is open to K-12 students, though they primarily serve grades 8-12 and African American children from low-income households.
Project Goals
Through their engagement with the Wisconsin Partnership Program, Mentoring Positives aims to (1) improve the design and delivery of The Positive Path youth program with assistance from evaluators and other specialists; (2) deepen their understanding of the impact their program has on participants’ lives and their families through data collection and interpretation with program partners; (3) leverage the achievement of Goals 1 and 2 to secure new sources of funding for the program; and (4) fully implement the program to engage 125 youth in 2027.
