This year, of course, brings us all special challenges. The current health crisis has had a major impact on young people in their last two years of high school as they reach adulthood and navigate their transition to either higher education or employment. These young adults are also trying to find their place in our economy and a path to an equitable future.
ECLC plans to explore solutions to these concerns in a series of forums and subsequent activities that develop the ideas that our forums produce.
Our experience as an organization shows that we can draw significant audiences of both community leaders and professionals who are interested in advancing our goals. With our emphasis on youth, we want to expand involvement among young people in our future forums so we can establish goals that serve our community’s expressed needs.
ECLC’s main goal for 2021 will be to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the educational and job opportunities of high school juniors, seniors, and college freshmen. Towards that end, we will be contacting students, teachers, and government organizations to determine what they need to emerge whole from the pandemic’s past year of difficulty and uncertainty. Our focus will be not only to foster progress in education and job preparation in the wake of the pandemic’s societal disruption but also to empower our emerging citizens to find their own paths to success in the coming years.