Most of the kids who got selected for this weeklong confidence-building program came from Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Most of the students were failing or near-failing middle school students.
Classroom Inc. is a non-profit organization that helps middle and high school students to learn, develop, and practice real-life work skills.
“I’m very happy that my son got picked in the program,” said Onike Stephens, mother of 14-year-old Adondre Stephens.
“I wrote an application for this program and I got picked, I feel good, accomplished, and appreciated,” said Adondre.
“My mom is happy, because she thinks the program that I joined could be added to my resume. Also, I’ll recommend this program to other people. This was a fun experience,” said 13-year-old performer Nkozi Stewart.
The students are treated as interns and receive a stipend at the end of the week.
Jane Canner, President of Classroom Inc. said that on the students’ first day they were shy, but they quickly opened up and developed goals for the future.
“We keep them very busy all week. They are on the computer, doing research. We have guest speakers come in who are office workers, dancers, and singers. For little half-hour segments, the kids asked them questions and talked about different careers,” said Canner.
“We did this just to expose the kids to the careers. We found lots of them don’t know about those careers and lots of them have had very limited experiences,” Canner said.
