In a 1,000 word essay, please describe your project including: 
Nickole Evans: I am 14 years old and have volunteered over 500 hours during 1997-8.  This is in addition to my 3 years honor role status and activities including 3 years in Band, 2 years in Jazz Band, 2 years in Dance Team, 2 years in Basketball, 3 years in Natural Helpers, 8+ years in Girl Scouts, 1 year in Yearbook, and Journalism. I have won numerous art awards, published locally in the Tri-City Herald Kidzone, internationally in the Junior Summit Junior Journal, and nationally in Girls Life Magazine. Please see my portfolio World Wide Web page at http://www.tcfn.org/nickole 

1. Provide us with a description of your project and the number of participants in the project: 
I volunteer for The Columbia Free-Net, the RECA Foundation, a computer community network that helps non-profit organizations develop World Wide Web pages. They also train non-profit staff, low income families, at risk youth, and disabled people on how to obtain access and use of information technology. See their comprehensive web page for more information. http://www.tcfn.org.  Over 10,000 are served through the RECA Foundation programs.  In our youth project there is an average of 15. Through education and easy access to information our community has already seen a reduction in violent crimes. The following are web pages I designed or contributed to in order to help my community and world be a better place. 

"Youth Speak Out" web page was designed 3/98 where youth can speak out on issues that affect their communities and their world. The following are examples. See http://www.tcfn.org/jrsummit/inteam.html 

World Violence: This is a huge issue. There are all kinds of abuse: extreme labor, physical violence, starving kids, child sexual abuse, and more. There is no, absolutely no excuse for child abuse. No child alive deserves that kind of torture. Not only can it harm the kid and cause them much pain, it even leads to death. This has got to stop. Children are the future, and we want the future to be filled with successful peaceful people, not thieves and violent people which, as a result of child abuse, people usually turn into unless they get serious help. Sample Problem: Someone is physically and verbally abusing a child in front of his or her friends or family. Sample Solution: Befriend the child and get a responsible adult to help 

Race and Nationality: The problems with different races are getting better, but lots of people still judge others by their skin. Some white people won’t talk to black people and vise versa. Skin is beautiful whether you get the honor of black skin, white skin, yellow skin, etc. But not everyone thinks that, and it can cause problems. Sample Problem: Kids don’t usually go out of their way to make friends with other kids that belong to different race and nationality. Sample Solution Go out of your way to make friends with someone that is from a different race or nationality then yourself. 
 

Juvenile Justice Web Page: A 19 year-old at risk youth and I put together the Benton Franklin Juvenile Justice Web page. See http://www.tcfn.org/juvy. What makes this so fun is there is a strictly boy's section, with frustrating nonwinnable games in it that is like being in jail. For the strictly girls section, we put together self assessment questionnaires to see what kind of girl a girl is.  And on the strictly adults section we put together a questionnaire on how to raise a juvenile delinquent. 
 

Youth Volunteer Center web page: Five volunteer teenage girls and I put together this web page to encourage youth to volunteer. On the web page are 40 jobs ranging from taking care of kids, picking up trash, helping at the animal shelter, making web pages for non-profits, typing, answering phones, and even teen talk help line. See http://www.tcfn.org/volunteer/sos.html 

2 What would be the impact of your program for youth and the community. 
We have already experienced a reduction in violent crime in Benton and Franklin Counties, much like the rest of the nation. We attribute this to the community awareness and education on programs that decrease the rate of crime. The web pages are just one more way to get the message out to youth and the community. 

3. Describe how your project promotes violence prevention skills for your people. 
Violence prevention skills can be learned in a group setting, reading about it in a book or on a computer, playing games that demonstrate prevention skills, watching shows that show techniques to avoid violence, etc. By putting information on the World Wide Web, it is just one more vehicle to promote violence prevention skills. 

4. Detail the calendar of events for the project and show how it will be a yearlong youth 
service project. Summer 10 Weeks: Recruit and hire at risk youth, train on using the computer, Internet, web page design, layout, HTML code, evaluate sites for good examples of getting the message across. Products: Personal Web page and a web page for an organization. Fall-Spring: Commitment to maintain the web pages through out the year. 
 
5. If you had an opportunity to partner with your local MTV cable affiliate on this 
project, describe how  you might engage them in your project as a partner.  This last summer we had a video of us taken during a presentation to a community group. This tape was digitized and put on the WWW for the world to see.  MTV could really help us show how through our computers we can make our community a better place to live. It would be a natural for MTV to help produce a video on the benefits of technology in our community.  I would love the opportunity to work with the local MTV affiliate to learn about producing a video and/or promoting activities that reduce violence in our community.