Year Up program provides students with skills, opportunities
On the website it’s called closing the opportunity divide, equating economic justice with economic prosperity. In real life it means helping a young person who’s seen friends and relatives die young, who’s known poverty, drugs, violence, and even homelessness, realize his professional potential. That’s the work of Year Up, the brainchild of Harvard Business School graduate Gerald Chertavian. Since it began in Boston in 2000, Year Up — a nonprofit program that helps underserved young people gain the skills and discipline they need to succeed — has trained and placed nearly 17,500 young people in professional internships in 21 cities. One of them was Stanley Fenelon. And for him, it was a game-changer. Fenelon grew up rough in Brockton. “My brother, sister and I all have different dads, and it was just our mom and us kids … It was the same story as most: urban city, poverty, a lot of drugs and violence,”...