Camp Pando

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

LA2050 issues are deeply interconnected within our core focus: systems-impacted youth - specifically, those with previous dropout and foster care experience and those reentering from juvenile detention. Many come from severely disadvantaged and disengaged communities with embedded cycles of poverty, environmental injustice, low graduation rates resulting in poor job placement, and limited career opportunities. Education programs targeting the demographic are unable to support the range of creative offerings typical of privileged communities, where immersive programs offer project-based learning connected to compelling challenges, put forward by a real-world “client,” and the chance to make a difference. Where such programs are lacking, students may fail to engage. We address this by providing previously unheard of opportunities for systems-impacted youth through project-based learning with STEAM alignment, creative skills development, career development, and civic engagement.

Camp Pando offers systems-impaired youth a creative “boot camp” opportunity with a project-based learning core focused on challenges defined by a public agency client (LA Metro). The program derives from models offered in more advanced educational settings, such as design schools.
The program is residential and operates from a retreat location. We offer one boot camp session for each of two trimesters, with Senior Project support in the third. We provide teacher training and offer extensive creative support.
Student teams focus throughout the entirety of the program on addressing a challenge proposed by Metro: How might we make bus stops more than places to catch a ride but into hubs of sustainability? Educators, specialists, and an A-list of creatives coach their work.
The program offers creative skills development including the use of professional tools such as design thinking, and meets certain environmental science and science lab requirements along with research, writing, presentation, and Senior Project learning objectives.
In the process, students learn design thinking skills from legendary leaders in the field and get hands-on experience in project innovation and development. They walk away from the program with an ingenious “portfolio project” to include on a resume (possibly one that may actually get implemented by the client agency), a paid internship for participation, workforce development leads, and a micro-credential that can lead to career enhancement.

The challenges LA faces require all-hands-on-deck. We cannot afford any group to remain at the margins; we need every set of hands to alleviate a history of social injustice and be oriented towards the common good with integration of all into the fabric of civic life. Rich and effective education is not simply an economic imperative; it is an imperative for creating the kind of engaged Angelenos needed to provide effective leaders and effective implementers. We believe the Camp Pando model is uniquely positioned, with our visionary partners and public agency client, to do just this. We envision cohorts of engaged young people from systems-challenged backgrounds coming through the program who are knowledgeable and capable of producing the kind of LA future we want to inhabit. We envision that every young person with a dropout, foster, or juvenile detention past has an opportunity to co-design positive change.

We mounted a prototype program based on the Pando Days model. We were especially interested in tracking engagement. Qualitative data came from student/teacher interviews.
Shasan:
“Honestly I didn’t know what I was expecting, but when I sat down and I seen what we was doing, presenting, talking, brainstorming, all coming together just to figure out what’s going on in the world, what we need to do to fix it. It’s just a whole different experience, and I’m blessed to be here.”
Angel:
“This program has gotten me more interested, and I want to learn more after the program’s over...I like it and I think it’ll feel nice to make a difference.”
Quantitative metrics track student engagement with school work, resulting in higher completion rates, community college application rates, and work/internship program rates. We track the number of teachers trained, student attendance, number micro-credentialed, and related Senior Projects. We track student-generated ideas that affect the community.