Teen Skills Initiative is a program for
urban minority high school girls.

Currently there are 11 girls in TSI and the program is funded by a grant from First Niagara Bank. The goals of the program are:

• To provide teens with career exploration and preparation opportunities related to the museum, education and science fields.
• To address the need for meaningful youth employment, job skill development, and science content exploration.
• To support positive youth development through Museum experiences.
• To encourage involvement in BMS by an otherwise underserved target audience, teenaged youth.
• To encourage increased awareness of the BMS throughout the City of Buffalo.
  

   
Summer Training Retreat

TSI runs during the school year as an after-school program with the girls involved in community center outreach, skill enrichment workshops and working as floor staff at the Museum. There is also a college prep component to the program (including campus visits). We meet monthly as a whole group to discuss upcoming events and programs.

“TSI gives you a great opportunity to learn while teaching others.” “TSI is helping me to learn responsibility and the meaning of hard work. The program has taught me things about myself that I never knew before.”  - TSI program participants

TSI participants benefit from college preparatory workshops and campus visits, field trips and other skill building activities.


These are just are just a few photographs from Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The participants of TSI took part in a nation wide program called “A seat for social justice”. As a part of the program, the girls painted a doctors office on Jericho Road in honor of Dr. King.

During the summer, the girls are responsible for leading and assisting outreach programs in local community centers, running floor demonstrations at the Museum, leading Thursdays in the Park (free outdoor science activities in MLK Jr. Park), facilitating Museum and Tifft Nature Preserve field trips, working as Museum and Science Spot staff and representing the BMS at local festivals.

To participate in the Teen Skills Initiative program, please fill out an application by clicking here.  Applications are accepted during the following dates:

5/12/08 – 5/23/08

Staff

Monika L. McFoy
Community Programs Director
(716) 896-5200, Ext. 343 (phone)
(716) 895-8739 (fax)
mmcfoy@sciencebuff.org

Caryn L. Corriere
TSI Program Coordinator
(716) 896-5200, Ext. 382 (phone)
(716) 895-8739 (fax)
ccorriere@sciencebuff.org

 

 

TSI is generously funded by: