Our Story

At Living Well Youth Works, our mission is to empower teenagers of all backgrounds to thrive, defy the odds and grow into productive members of society. We do this through two programs called Overcoming Obstacles and Collegiate Exposure. Overcoming Obstacles is a life skills curriculum that has been in operation for over 30 years and is designed to teach life skills through engaging activities, role-playing, group discussions, and service learning. Overcoming Obstacles results include better school attendance rates, improved school culture, increased student employability, and better college readiness. Students note a decrease in bullying and an improved sense of self-esteem as a result of learning the skills taught through the program. Short-term indicators of success include improved academic performance, reductions in school violence, and increased attendance rates while long-term indicators include increased graduation rates, college and career preparedness, and general life satisfaction. The Collegiate Exposure program “exposes” teenagers to higher education by taking them on single-day campus tours of 21 prestigious universities in 7 north-eastern states in the USA. Some of the universities include Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Seton Hall, Howard, Cornell, Villanova, Hampton, New York University, Virginia Tech, Morgan State and Mount Saint Mary’s.