Loyola University Chicago

Overview:

CURL is in the process of conducting an evaluation of the Chicago Freedom School's inaugral 6-week summer institute for Chicago youth. The CFS summer institute was a six-week program, where youth(“Freedom Fellows”) participated in courses that made connections between their own interests and social justice issues. The summer institute was designed to allow the Freedom Fellows to have an opportunity to ask questions about their lives, to see the connection between the means and the ends of creating change, and to develop as agents of social change. In addition, all the Freedom Fellows spent each Friday engaged in a Civil Rights Institute, which explores how social movements happen and how individual action and historical forces combine to create change.

Goals:

To assess whether the CFS met its intended objectives in the areas of identity development, socio-political consciousness, leadership development, and movement building strategy. To document the strengths and challenges of the inaugural year of the CFS summer institute using the perspectives of multiple stakeholders including CFS participants, teachers and staff; and finally, to create evaluation protocols and measures for CFS to allow them to continually collect data that informs future Chicago Freedom School programming.

Community:

Chicago-Wide (Youth)

Funding:

Chicago Freedom School