SMART Youth at a World AIDS Day Awareness Event.

Launched in 2005, SMART Youth was the first program to allow men into our all-girls club. This supportive but challenging program addresses the unique needs of adolescents (males and females ages 13-22) living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.

During its short history, SMART Youth has evolved from a largely social organization to one focused on education, advocacy and community service through structured workshops, long-term projects and youth-directed initiatives. Under the supervision of Program Director Janet Cameron, SMART Youth has begun fulfilling its initial vision of providing a comfortable place where youth can not only socialize, but gain independent living skills, and develop essential coping mechanisms at this critical time in their lives.

Nutrition and Prevention

SMART Youth information table.

Since 2007, SMART has participated in City Harvest’s Operation Frontline Nutrition Program, a six-week hands-on cooking and nutrition course taught by a chef from the Food Network with guidance from City Harvest nutritionists and staff. A similar program is planned for 2008.

Advocacy came into play in the summer of 2007 when SMART Youth identified the need to distribute prevention materials at public pools and other summer recreation locations. They put together condom baskets that had safer sex packages and distributed them to stores, coffee shops, and other public locations throughout the city. In June, the youth also hosted a Safer Sex Workshop with the Young Women’s Leadership School (TYWLS) for about 20 young women at the 9th and 10th grade level. A SMART Youth alumni – who now works at Planned Parenthood as an HIV Specialist – was one of the facilitators.

SMART Youth Halloween Party

Input from the members has led to a number of creative projects, including SYNC, SMART Youth’s ongoing project to create eye-catching T-shirts with HIV awareness and prevention messages, as well as collaboration with MNN (Manhattan Neighborhood Network). Teens participated in a six-week series of workshops which resulted in the Public Service Announcement titled “Love Glove,” a three-minute appeal for condom use, which has aired on MNN.

The Big Event

From the African Mask Making workshop.

Launched in 2005, the annual Halloween Party is SMART Youth’s biggest project of the year. From August through October, members of SMART Youth collaborate with interested peers from Harlem Hospital and Packer Collegiate Institute to create a youth-driven and centered Halloween Party as well as pre-party events such as African Mask Making with the Museum for African Arts and a dance workshop with the United States Tournament of Dance, Inc. (both 2007). Planning last year’s event also meant that youth had to take the initiative to research and contact more than 40 companies to request donations, securing products from Nike, Costco, Nickelodeon, Verizon and others.

In the next few years, SMART Youth programming will continue evolving based on feedback from active members and those participants who have moved on to college and beyond—balancing participants’ initiative with the adult supervision and structure necessary to keep projects on track for success.