Actor and best-selling author, Hill Harper, has created the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation to encourage and enable at-risk youth to succeed. The foundation’s mission is to “provide underserved youth a path to empowerment and educational excellence through academic programming, college access skills, and personal development.” Hill Harper’s motivation was to pass along the lessons he had learned as an accomplished student and to provide a foundation for our youth to also obtain success.
Through the MYD Foundation, Harper visits colleges all over the country and even participates in the annual “Empower Me HBCU College Tour.” Some of the schools he has visited this year include University of Illinois, University of North Carolina-Pembroke, University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University. Besides his many speaking engagements, Hill also has a summer academy for students entering 9th grade. The MYD Foundation believes that all students are college material and that the high school dropout epidemic is one of the most pressing issues we face in public education today. Several studies have suggested that mentoring and academic support for students entering high school significantly lowers the dropout rate.
Harper’s MYD Foundation has partnered with West Los Angeles College’s Educational Opportunity Center to create the Summer Empowerment Academy. SEA, a program designed specifically to address the dropout epidemic, provides students and parents with mentoring, educational support, and motivation during their transition into 9th grade. The SEA is a week-long training program that shows students the world of opportunity around them. Although the program is only a week long, the enlightenment and mentorship continues long after the program ends. Every student is mentored throughout his or her high school career, and there is a Saturday Academy meeting once each month from 9 am until 3 pm. Every student who successfully completes the summer program also receives one unit of college credit. The program is only for students near Los Angeles, but the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation is in the process of planning the national expansion of the Summer Empowerment Academy.
To learn more about the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation or how your child can participate in the Summer Empowerment Academy, please visit www.manifestyourdestiny.org
