LEARNFuture Trailblazers
The Future Trailblazers Male Leadership Academy is a 16-week program designed to empower middle school and high school boys by fostering leadership, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and community engagement. Through structured mentorship, peer support, hands-on service projects, and family engagement, students will develop the confidence, discipline, and leadership skills necessary to navigate life’s challenges and become proactive leaders in their schools and communities.
What is the primary issue area that your application will impact?
Support for foster and systems-impacted youth
In which areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?
Long Beach
In what stage of innovation is this project, program, or initiative?
Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)
What is your understanding of the issue that you are seeking to address?
According to the American Institute for Boys and Men, fifteen percent of modern young men report that they lack a close friend or confidant, resulting in “a-five-fold increase since 1990". According to youthmentor.org, at-risk youth who experience mentoring relationships are 55% more likely to attend higher education, 78% volunteer regularly, and 90% express a desire to become a mentor themselves. Long-term research conducted by the US department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that shows that school-based programs support a prevalent “decrease on several measures of crime involvement and improved individual skills and school performance”.
Describe the project, program, or initiative this grant will support to address the issue.
This program will directly address and support the mental health of high school-aged young men. Our program will support young men by providing opportunities to develop true friendship with their peers and form mentoring relationships with responsible adults. This programming will provide a safe space for young men to improved self-awareness, impulse control, and leadership skills, real-world leadership experience and civic responsibility, strengthened emotional well-being and reduced male loneliness, strengthened home support for emotional and leadership development, and informed program refinements and long-term mentorship impact.
School-based mentorship and leadership programs, such as Future Trailblazers, reduce gang involvement, juvenile crime rates, and improve academic performance.
Describe how Los Angeles County will be different if your work is successful.
If our work is successful, we will be able to scale our project and offered to middle school and high school students throughout the Long Beach Unified School District. By demonstrating measurable impact, we can implement this programming throughout the city, extend the programming to middle and high school-aged girls as well, and establish long-term mentorship and service-oriented programs for thousands of students.
Approximately how many people will be impacted by this project, program, or initiative?
Direct Impact: 75
Indirect Impact: 250