Youth Programs
When we create spaces where students feel valued and seen, the path to positive learning environments is clear. Bridges is a two-day leadership workshop that guides middle and high school students to cross the bridge from desiring change to making change. Participants learn how to harness their leadership skills to make the change they wish to see. Each NCCJ Bridges program brings together 25 young people and 2 school employees to learn, work, and grow towards improving their community. Two NCCJ facilitators guide participants through interactive and thought-provoking activities that provide students with a deeper understanding of the world around them and the tools to use their voices as a positive force for change within their communities.
Beginning in 1957 as NCCJ’s flagship youth program, NCCJ ANYTOWN is a nationally recognized, award-winning leadership and social justice program for youth ages 14-18. ANYTOWN educates, liberates, and empowers youth delegates to become effective, responsible leaders and community builders.
Over the course of a week-long residency, Delegates explore topics of self, identity, and community to gain an understanding of inclusive leadership through interactive games, workshops, and discussions. Delegates learn to create community based on respect and understanding in which members not just tolerate but celebrate each other’s differences.
Delegates leave ANYTOWN with the knowledge and skills to transform their homes, schools, communities, and future workplaces into spaces where individual differences are seen as positive tools that bring people together instead of keeping them apart. Delegates learn to identify and address their own biases and obtain the tools to address prejudice, creating a ripple effect of inclusivity and justice in every space they enter.
Adults Programs
NCCJ’s Equity Leadership Alliance (ELA) helps organizations take their equity practice to the next level through participation in a six-month, cohort-based experience. ELA brings together organizational leaders to create a network of support and education that lasts long beyond the experience of the program.
In this highly engaging experience, ELA participants build on existing skills in equity leadership and culture building to strengthen their ability to support inclusive leadership principles, such as clear and effective communication, fearless conflict resolution, considerate cross-cultural collaboration, and honest self-assessment. ELA equips graduates with tools that allow them to support inclusive, equitable leadership.
Private and open cohorts available.
At NCCJ, we believe that our identities aren’t just important to us as individuals, they are a critical part of how we move through the world and respond to systems that impact how our lives play out.
NCCJ explores 10 different social identities – race, class, gender, sex, sexual orientation, age, ability, religion, body size, nationality/citizenship status – to better understand how inequality persists and how we can be a part of changing it.
Join us in one of our identity-specific workshops, where we gain a better understanding of how our social world functions and how identity forms the lens through which we see the world and through which the world sees us.
Our identity workshops take participants through a historical overview, how we fit into and uphold oppressive systems, and what steps we can take right now to begin making change.
Our Identity workshops include:
- Creating Connections Across Race
- Religion in the U.S.
- Class and Wealth, and many
Community Perspectives
NCCJ Community Perspectives is our complimentary online program designed to bring equity and identity related topics to the public in an easily accessible and digestible manner. Join us for an hour-long, interactive deep dive into content that will improve your understanding of leadership, community building, culture, and identity. Past Community Perspective topics include Sizeism 101, How to Talk to Your Kids About Race, Ageism and Adultism, Social Justice Jeopardy, and more!