The Cherokee Youth Council strives to give youth a voice on the Qualla Boundary and in the WNC region.Our youth represent the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina. Our vision is to develop selfless leaders for the future.
CYC LEADING THE CHANGE FOR EBCI
WHAT WE DO
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Our Mission
The mission of CYC is to provide an atmosphere for all youth members to use their voice. We want to give our youth the skills they need to be a selfless leader in our community. We want your voice to be heard!!
Cultural Preservation
The Cherokee Youth Council prides itself in the leadership development of youth through cultural preservation experiences. CYC participates in at least 5 cultural activities/events each year to allow our youth a traditional experience with elders, community craftmakers and historical knowledge.
Our youth council is based around the idea of traditional grand council government in which all members have equal say. Our youth council runs along side this idea by conducting their meetings and activities around consensus government ways.
Selfless Leadership
The base of our youth council is designed to guide our youth into being SELFLESS leaders within the community. As humans we tend of be selflish in almost all of our ways and this program was designed to help our youth think of someone else first. We participate in a number of community service projects each year to show our community how much we really care about them. We also select one topic of interest each year that we can really concentrate on to make a huge impact. Most of our ideas are based around tribal youth in our communities.
Traveling Experiences
The Cherokee Youth Council is offered a number of travel leadership opportunities each year. One of these annual trips, is to the United National Indian Tribal Youth(UNITY) Conferences across the U.S. This conference hosts approx. 1,800 native youth from all over once a year to fellowship, develop social networks, demonstrate their own culture, and learn about the things other tribes are doing to make Indian Country better. The conference hosts a variety of activities such as physical fitness, workshops, career fairs, team building, social networking, technology interaction, guest speakers, field trips and much more....
Other travel may include trips to Oklahoma, Washington D.C. local conferences, college tours, and more.
Among the many other things CYC is doing, one of the main focuses is leadership! We expose our youth to many things from how to shake someone's hand to speaking in front of 1,500 people. Our goal is to tackle both big and small and allow moments for our youth to rise to the occasion. During the first years most youth try to grasp our concept but once it's grasped there is NO going back. Some of the topics covered are:
Team Building Public Speaking Community Service Honesty
Conflict Resolution Interview Exposure Spirituality What is Love?
Using Voice Integrity Cultural Aspects History
Constructive Criticism Selflessness Building Character
Leadership Development
Gadugi
CYC is dedicated to community service all throughout the year. We complete small projects like trash pickups, washing the bears in town and volunteering at events to bigger projects such as Anti-bullying Projects at CCS, Teen Pregnancy Documentaries, and Tribal Wide Recycling.
2016 CYC Rack Card
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