Global Youth Service Day 2009: Service-Learning Curriculum Guide: A Guide for Developing Project Management Skills

Use this guide if you are a teacher, a community leader, or a young person leading other youth in a service project on Global Youth Service Day or any day of the year. (While this guide primarily refers to events in the United States, it draws on lessons from our international colleagues.) Framed within a service-learning model, this curriculum offers tools for youth, teachers, and facilitators to teach the basics of project management as applied to community service. As young people learn and practice these skills, they will be able to transfer them to other areas such as organizing a school event, or developing a new initiative in their own organizations. You will find resources in areas such as fundraising, budgeting, communicating, and running effective meetings referenced throughout the publication and specifically concentrated in the Appendix. The goal of this curriculum guide is to provide practitioners, teachers, youth, community organizers and faith-based educators with a structured framework to support the design and preparation of their service project. Each lesson plan addresses a specific step in the planning process and focuses on particular skills to acquire in the development of each stage. You will find that this is not a content-specific service-learning curriculum as one might expect. However, it is an inclusive curriculum, focused on specific sets of goals and projected steps that will enable all users, rather than solely classroom educators, to develop detailed and successful service projects. (authors)