Doing Good Things Series ~ Youth Achieving Moral Maturity

By Guest Blogger Kamm Galloway 

Do you like working with youth or young adults as a volunteer? Do you have skills such as mentoring, event planning, fundraising, nonprofit admin skills, etc. that you would like to use as a youth organization volunteer? If you do, we have volunteer opportunities available for you. Or do you have a youth you would to place in a youth mentoring organization? Get in touch with us…YAMM!

We are Youth Achieving Moral Maturity, a nonprofit youth mentoring organization. Our mission is to build moral standards, guidance and leadership. ​We vision at-risk youth and families, building resiliency through teamwork, critical thinking, and self-confidence to achieve self-sufficiency.

We encourage and guide at-risk youth and young adults as a community-based alternative through empowerment, enrichment and academic tutoring that results in self-moral maturity.  We place a positive focus on entrepreneurship distracting negative influences enabling youth and young adults to achieve moral maturity.  Further resulting in better decision-making regarding education, finances, career options, the entertainment of criminal activities, community engagement and leadership, that lead to better lives.

YAMM is based in Winston-Salem as a mobile organization providing free services citywide to youth, families and the community in the community residents reside in. Our programs, workshops and events assist youth ages 10-17 and young adults ages 18-24 and parents. We also have gender-based programs, with an overall focus that caters to the deterrent of initial or further contact with authorities by youth and young adults.

Our main programs are

• PROJECT EOG—A tutoring program that assists mentees in the weak areas of academics through an assessment of strengths and weaknesses in academics and NC EOG exam.
• Bella Diamonds—Is a program that guides girls ages 12-16 to get the guidance they need in their girl to young lady transition as they represent the young ladies of YAMM in public appearances.
• The Ellis Effect—Is a program that guides boys ages 12-16 to get the guidance they need in their boy to young man transition as they represent the young men of YAMM in public appearances.
• MODEL ART (Aggression Replacement Training) – Uses Communication and self-control exercises to influence anger management behavior to a positive height of self-control and conflict solving resolutions. A Better Anger Management Solution.
• ParentMe—Is a series of parenting class for single mothers of boys to guide them in the raising of boy to man.
• EntrepreneurMe—Is a series of workshops held for youth ages 12-16 to get the guidance they need to start and run a business as a young entrepreneur.

Why volunteer? Did you know that outside of five other North Carolina counties, Forsyth County has more school-based referrals into the juvenile justice system in the state and in the past five years an average of 623 out of 1000 youth in Forsyth County ages 10-17 per year have been involved in the Forsyth County Juvenile Justice System?

Oftentimes, the juvenile justice system and schools have good intentions to hold youth accountable for their actions, however, this creates criminal records for our youth.  Forsyth County has community-based programs that are used to lower the number of youths admitted into the juvenile detention center as well as in the juvenile justice system itself, but it wasn’t until 2016 before the community-based programs began to start working to lower the number of youth delinquencies.

We strive to help our youth and parents live better lives through our volunteer services and programs. For more information about what we do and how we do it, or to volunteer or  signup your youth for one of our mentoring programs, visit our website at kammskids.com.

To read other blogs in our “Doing Good Things Series,” click here.

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