Youth Development Initiatives

Providing caring adult connections and life guidance to disadvantaged adolescent youth. YDI scholars engage in an individualized development process that combines project-based learning applications with real-world learning experiences to build critical life skills, career planning and post-secondary education preparedness. Youth Development Initiatives Inc. strives to lead the way in insuring ALL youth live in stable and caring communities where they receive meaningful educations, develop vital life skills and engage in essential social capital-building opportunities that ultimately result in successful futures. YDI’s innovative curriculum and interactive skills-based training includes individualized academic and career guidance, mentoring and summer enrichment opportunities founded on research and widely recognized best practices. YDI programs encourage students to stay in school, develop personal action plans, serve their community, and develop the job-readiness skills necessary to compete in an ever-changing, 21st Century global marketplace. Youth Development Initiatives Inc. (YDI) is a Charlotte, NC-based non-profit organization that gives hope to disadvantaged adolescent youth that they can make pathways out of poverty by engaging them in evidence-based programming after school that is proven to provide the guidance and the life skills-based training necessary for our scholars to finish high school prepared for college, vocational school, the military and/or a job. YDI has successfully operated youth programs since 2000 but became a 501(3)(c) entity in August 2006.