A Universal Pedagogy

Just Us 4 Youth has been a phenomenal experience. Coming from a dysfunctional , gang related, addictive and abusive family has made it easy for me to relate with the youth that we deal with on a daily basis. The majority of our students that we assist come from low income family and are first generation students who would go to college. I personally had a third obstacle to deal with, being undocumented.

Growing up in the barrio I was surrounded by over 10 different gangs within a 3 mile radius. I lost a cousin and even some of my friends were getting sentenced to life in prison. I didn’t have much of an option but to overcome the statistics. The average low income latino/hispanic has a higher probability to get locked or lose their life instead of graduating from high school. Being the first person from my family to graduate high school made me want to pursue higher education. Not having that superman in my life made me decide to turn into one for all urban youth that deal with daily social problems such as peer pressuring, lack of support, lack of education, drug addictions, gang affiliation, homelessness, and poverty. Many of our students at JU4Y deal with these types of problems on a daily basis.

One major challenge that I have overcome working for JU4Y is advising and mentoring the lost student. How do you mentor or advise someone when he or she does not know what they want in life or who they are? Our educational culture and system has always been the same, in the way of it being authoritative. Teacher says and student does. This has only trained and taught our students to prepare them for a vocation. The pedagogy that I practice is challenging our youth to become leaders by empowering them to question society and advocate for themselves as they advance in their literacy and knowledge. 

As a volunteer for JU4Y I have not only gained knowledge and experience, but I have had the privilege to inspire the youth to not give up and continue pushing forward regardless of the critical situation they might be in. Thanks to the wonderful and genuine team JU4Y has, I highly recommend for anyone that wants to gain experience in education and or wishes to give back to the  community to join and be part of the journey with JU4Y.

Luis Antonio-Pachecano

Cal Poly Pomona Graduate 

Future principal