Nyumburu Leadership Series

The BMI/Leadership Series (BMI/LS) Youth Leadership Institute is a dynamic program that is geared towards engaging and uplifting youth in a number of ways. Our program is aimed at reaching out to youth within the Washington DC Metropolitan area as a means towards building their overall leadership skills, self-esteem, scholarship, physical health, and community engagement. Within this informational packet you will find more information regarding each one of the program’s focus areas. The Leadership Institute is completely free to the youth. We only ask that schools, parents and/or guardians find a way to transport the youth to and from the University of Maryland’s Nyumburu Cultural Center. (www.nyumburu.umd.edu)

Self-Esteem and Consciousness:

Self-Esteem and Consciousness are at the core of most socially oriented organizations and leaders. It is vastly important for youth to build their overall self-esteem. A healthy self-esteem can/will enable youth to reinforce the confidence they need to support their talents and skill sets. Youth should believe in themselves and their overall abilities as an added measure towards achieving goals they set for themselves. Activities, positive reinforcement, and responsibilities can help foster self-esteem within youth.
Our program is catered to facilitate a number of positively based attributes within youth; self-esteem is one of them. The Leadership Institute, via a myriad of activities & workshops, helps youth pull their talents to the surface. As these talents become more present to the youth, their confidence and self-esteem tends to strengthen. The more confident the youth become the more likely they will be to succeed in many of the endeavors they have established for themselves. As the students’ confidence grows so will their overall leadership skills.
Consciousness is another key area that will be focused on within the BMI/LS Leadership Institute. One of the overarching goals of our Leadership Institute will be grounded in heightening the social and community based consciousness of students. Through fun and engaging activities we will challenge youth to build their overall consciousness, critical thinking skills, and affinity towards giving back. We want the youth to see themselves as potential change agents within their own communities. Our programs are geared towards improving the students’ overall critical thinking skills as well as teaching them to be solutions oriented. A prominent goal of this program is to get students to buy into the idea of reinvesting in their communities in numerous ways. We want youth to see the beauty and great potential their various communities hold within them. When individuals see potential, and beauty within their communities, they are naturally more apt to invest in them. We have tremendous strength within our communities and when we invest in the youth we are, in essence, investing in the community.

Making sure that our youth excel academically is vastly important to our communities, this country, and the world, in general. The more educated and technically trained young people we have the more prosperous our communities will become. Our Leadership Institute strives towards improving the educational opportunities of youth by way of tutoring, college readiness, and literacy based workshops. We start with a foundation built on a love for learning. It is vastly important to develop a love for learning in youth, first, before one can truly sell the idea of an education to most youth. We believe that if you can develop a love for learning, within youth, you can sell the idea of getting a formal education much easier. After all, once you develop a love for learning it will last a lifetime.

Our tutoring program, which is primarily facilitated by college students, will provide youth with hands on academic training in a wide array of subjects. Youth will be able to come to campus and receive academic support, through tutoring, in subjects like: arithmetic, reading, writing, and science. Most tutoring sessions will be set up with their respective tutors on an appointment-by-appointment basis. However, some tutoring sessions will be facilitated as group sessions. We have high hopes that our academic training sessions will improve and increase the school to college pipeline, as well as increase college retention rates. When our youth/students succeed, we all succeed.

Physical Health:


Good health is one of the most important and vital things a human being can own. Health is cornerstone to so many other important things in our lives and in our communities. Good health often times equates to a healthy mind. Good health lowers insurance premiums and health care costs. Good health allows us to focus more time and attention on building our communities rather than on preventable nagging ailments. After all, the best medicine is preventable “medicine”.

The BMI/Leadership Series Leadership Institute strives to teach and train youth how to properly take care of their bodies and to treat them like temples. Our Physical Health workshops focus on eating right, exercise, and sustaining a healthy lifestyle. These workshops are facilitated by students and community members who are proficient in these particular areas. The youth are the future; we have to keep them healthy in order to keep our future bright.

Sound and Progressive Leadership is essential to any thriving community. This leadership should, ideally, be rooted in the grassroots of the community so that they (leadership) always know what the thoughts, issues and concerns of the community are. Effective community based leadership comes from individuals and groups that understand the importance of getting involved in the community on various levels. We all need to buy in to this philosophy as a means towards improving our communities. This philosophy also allows everyone to take a stake in our overall success.

Our Leadership training is predicated on engaging youth critically, as well as empowering them to understand that they are viable agents of social change, inside each and every one of their communities. We want the youth to believe that they can make a positive difference. We want youth to feel as though they have a stake in their overall future, as well as the future of this world. Leadership begins with the basic understanding and belief that you can make a difference. We provide the youth with some dynamic workshops and training sessions centered on activities geared towards enabling students to create solutions for everyday issues that affect their lives. We challenge students through fun, interactive, and team oriented activities geared towards a solutions oriented mentality.

We would be honored to work with any youth that you think would be good candidates for our Leadership Institute. It is our honor to invest in the many communities that comprise the Washington DC Metropolitan Area through the youth. We are committed towards enabling youth to successfully position themselves socially, civically, academically and professionally. When we help the youth succeed we, as a community, all succeed. If you are interested in enrolling youth you know in the BMI/Leadership Series Youth Institute, please contact us at Solomon@umd.edu.