ECS News
Posted Monday, May 12, 2008
ECS Beacon Graduates Display the Best in Youth Development, Leadership
This graduation season is bittersweet at the ECS Beacon, as the afterschool and summer youth development program says farewell to some very special high school seniors.
Under the ECS Beacon youth development model, children at the ECS Beacon transition from participating in the education, games and other activities offered at the center after age 12 to leading them instead. As the program enters its sixth year, the first students to start in the after school program and complete their careers as mentors will soon be moving on.
Cheara and Cheary are inseparable twins at ECS Beacon but in the fall, they will be out on their own at different colleges.
Twin brothers Cheary and Cheara, the youngest of 10 siblings, credit their opportunity to mentor younger children at the ECS for helping them stay on the right track themselves. Now they have become the first in their families to graduate from high school.
When we first came here, we were looking up to the older kids,” said Cheary. “Now the younger kids look up to us. It makes you hold yourself up to a higher standard.”
The twins’ parents fled Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and were reluctant to see their sons become engaged in the larger community for fear that they would succumb to the peer pressures of the streets. At the ECS Beacon, they have been able to enjoy the best of both worlds, forging friendships that span the myriad ethnic groups of the Feltonville section of Philadelphia in the safe environment of the Beacon.
“This neighborhood can be a wonderful place to be. There are all different kinds of people, amazing diversity, and everybody connects. Everybody knows us as ‘the twins’ even if they can’t always tell us apart,” Cheara said. “You can get on the wrong track here too though. One of my friends was killed over the summer. He was in the wrong place, doing the wrong things.”
“There have been girls who left the program, then got pregnant and dropped out of school. A lot of my male friends are on the corner selling drugs. I see all this talent being wasted on dumb stuff,” Cheary said. “Without the Beacon, I’d probably be out there on the streets myself, doing negative things.”
In the fall, the inseparable brothers will temporarily part ways with their neighborhood and each other. Cheary plans to pursue a degree in hospitality management at Central Pennsylvania College so that he can one day own his own restaurant (possibly even filling the void of Cambodian cuisine in Philadelphia). Cheara will study criminal justice at Penn State so that he can one day protect his community and his country as a member of the FBI.
Kyran overcame his fear of public speaking to deliver a speech about the Beacon program to an audience that included the mayor.
The ECS Beacon has an amazing advocate in Kyran, 18, who last year year overcame his fear of public speaking to deliver a speech on the value of the city’s Beacon programs to an audience that included then-mayor John Street.
“Before I came to the Beacon, I was rather shy so I wasn’t into much. I was always home. At the Beacon Center, I started meeting people, helping kids with their homework, doing interactive activities, and I really came out of my shell,” Kyran said. “Without the Beacon Center, I might be out in the street doing things I shouldn’t. I know better than that, but peer pressure still might have gotten to me.”
Kyran has so many goals in life that the hardest thing is deciding what to pursue first. Already, he runs his own business, employing fellow students to provide affordable housekeeping services in his Feltonville neighborhood. He plans to enter Temple University to pursue his best subject in high school, science, while also exploring the fields of graphic design and restaurant management.
“I didn’t have the opportunity to attend a school where learning was going on, but I could come to the Beacon every day looking for something new to do to help me get through high school and the daily things that go on in life,” said Kyran. “The kids need this. I’ve seen a lot of kids come through here who were rowdy and out of control, and today they are respectful, responsible, and on the right track.”