Empowering Youth Dreams Together: A Peer Mentorship Program Joining “I Have a Dream Foundation” Los Angeles Alumni and Emerging Scholars

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

More than half of America’s public school students are low-income. Only 9% will earn a bachelor’s degree versus 77% of their high-income counterparts (a rate that nearly doubled over the last four decades. Only one-third of California’s 9th graders graduated college in 2021 and middle- and higher-income students were twice as likely to do so. IHADLA seeks to reverse this trend by mentoring foster and system-impacted youth. (All qualify for a free or reduced lunch at a time when the income limit is $39,000 for a family of four.) Ninety percent of Dreamer Scholars complete high school versus 74% of low-income students; they are three times more likely to graduate college; and 77% are first-generation.The Los Angeles and Inglewood Unified 2023 high school graduation rate was 86% whereas 98% of Dreamer Scholars graduated in 2018, 96% in 2019, and 93% in 2022. The ultimate goal is college graduation; studies show it will yield an additional $1 million in lifetime earnings on average.

Empowering Youth Dreams Together is a year-long pilot program for peer mentorship of Dreamer Scholars of the expected high school Classes of 2028 and 2029 through peer mentorship by IHADLA alumni. Through monthly one-on-one sessions, quarterly social-emotional learning in small groups, and community engagement activities during Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Black History Month, and Juneteenth, at least 10 peer mentors will support up to X mentees with evidenced-based but highly personalized approaches to improving school work and study skills, resisting peer pressure, maintaining high attendance and good behavior, and readying for college. These young people–each a college student or recent college graduate–will help young people disadvantaged by systems-level failures and potentially unstable home environments. No support is more in keeping with King’s “I Have a Dream” speech than peer mentoring. It was promoted by educator and theorist Paulo Freire in the 1960s to emancipate mind and spirit: "The fundamental task of the mentor is a liberatory task. It is not to encourage the mentor's goals and aspirations and dreams to be reproduced in the mentees, the students, but to give rise to the possibility that the students become the owners of their own history…teachers have to transcend their merely instructive task and to assume the ethical posture of a mentor who truly believes in the total autonomy, freedom, and development of those he or she mentors.”

A 75,000 grant will go a long way for IHADLA, which has been embedded in Los Angeles’ most historically disinvested communities since 1987, serving more than 11,500 students to date. The multiplier effect of a bachelor’s degree means that ultimately, Dreamer Scholars will increase their cumulative earning power by up to $11.5 billion. This return on investment directly benefits Los Angeles County because most alumni will stay in the region. The success envisioned for the peer-mentor pilot is high school and college matriculation, resulting in upward economic mobility. Yet, the intended impact is greater than financial gain. It is the invaluable gift of inspiring foster children and system-impacted youth to know their own worth—indeed, to value “the content of their character,” as King said—and define their own dreams for a more hopeful future. Lessons learned will help IHADLA make peer mentorship a permanent offering and, over 5 years, scale to serve 350+ Dreamer Scholars annually.

IHADLA provides youth in under-resourced communities with academic support, college and career readiness, life skill development, parent engagement, and social-emotional support, plus an $8,000 college scholarship. The proposed pilot—the organization's first-ever peer mentorship program–centers on Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Success will be defined and measured as follows: Participation rate: 75% of invited Dreamer Scholars will enroll in the program upon invitation Satisfaction score: 80% of mentors and 85% of mentees will report the highest level of satisfaction Skill development: 90% of mentors and 95% of mentees will report significant improvement across ten skills
Relationship quality: bonds formed will be strong and positive relative to the qualities of trust, respect, communication, feedback, support, and collaboration
Matriculation Impact: 100% of Dreamer Scholars will be retained the following academic year and 90% will graduate from high school on time