NEW: CDBF AAPI Emerging Leaders Program

The Colorado Dragon Boat Festival is proud to announce an important new opportunity for our community: The AAPI Emerging Leaders Program.

Over the years numerous Asian American Pacific Islander community organizations have expressed the need for culturally sensitive leadership programs dedicated to train AAPI youth and young adults.

CDBF convened a series of meetings with AAPI community leaders and determined that a leadership program specifically tailored for the 18-25 year old population is needed. The program is necessary to ensure that the AAPI young adults become powerful, productive, and effective community and business leaders.

With the generous financial support from Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Colorado Foundation, Arun Das Memorial Fund, Miller Coors and private donors, the Asian American and Pacific Islander Emerging Leaders Program was developed.

The AAPI Emerging Leaders Program Council would like to invite you to encourage your youth and young adults to apply for this program. The program is designed to develop their leadership skills through leadership training, mentorship, support, and development opportunities.

You can download the overview of the program as well as the application form for your convenience.

Application Deadline is Friday, October 28, 2011, 5pm.

Please call us at 303-953-7277 or email us at leadership@cdbf.org if you have questions or need more information.

Purpose

The Emerging Leaders Program is designed to develop the leadership skills of Asian American and Pacific Islanders — between the ages of 18 and 25 — by providing leadership training, support, and opportunities. The purpose of this program is to build bridges from one AAPI generation to another to help these emerging leaders become successful in their personal and professional lives and to strengthen their communities through service, engagement, and education.

Background

Identifying and developing young leaders is the life blood of many organizations and this is especially true in Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities.

Over the years, numerous AAPI community organizations have expressed concerns regarding the lack of culturally sensitive leadership programs available to train AAPI youth and young adults. In 2008, the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival convened a series of meetings with Asian American organizations and community leaders to identify leadership programs and resources being offered to AAPI youth and to determine populations not served by these programs. Through this research, the gap became clearer as the group sought leadership programs specifically tailored for Colorado’s Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders ages 18 through 25…none could be found.

To ensure that AAPI young adults become powerful, productive, effective community and business leaders the Asian American and Pacific Islander Emerging Leaders Program was developed.

Requirements and Selection

• The deadline to submit applications is Friday Oct. 28 at 5 pm.
• A potential candidate must be 18 to 25 years old and is a current member of one
  of Colorado’s current AAPI communities.
• Each candidate is required to submit the application, answer all essay questions articulating his or her desire to be a leader and three references. A letter of recommendation from a teacher/professor, school counselor, community leader, mentor or professional is a plus.
• The Selection Committee will interview the candidates in November and select 10-15 individuals to participate in this program. Upon selection each participant is required to sign a written commitment to complete the program and community project.
• The application fee is $100 and is due by October 28, 2011. You can send payment with your application form, or you can submit the fee online via PayPal here. For applicants who are not selected, the application fee will be refunded in full. If cost is a factor, please contact the Emerging Leaders Program Council at leadership@cdbf.org.

Workshops

The program consists of 3 full-day training sessions to be held Sat. Jan. 21 2012, Sat. February 25 2012 and Sat. March 24 2012. Topics include:

• Module 1: Know Yourself – discover your vision, life purpose, value and passion, build on your skills and develop a strong personal brand
• Module 2: Express Yourself/Finding Your Voice – gain tools to aid in reacting quickly to any situation, honing listening skills, and becoming aware of your intent versus your impact
• Module 3: Give Yourself – builds on the other 2 modules to put leadership skills into action, strengthen conflict resolution skills, and learn about different leadership styles
• A portion of each training will be set aside to help identify and plan each participant’s community project
• Teleconferences will be scheduled in-between modules. This is a time for participants to call in to ask questions, practice skills and to get coaching on a particular issue.
  Community Project
• It is important for leaders to understand how to demonstrate their desire to make a positive impact on the AAPI community. Growing great leaders and the desire to make a difference is, in part, the purpose of leading a community project
• Every participant must develop and execute a community project. Individuals can choose from several group projects or may elect to carry out his or her own project
• Participants will be required to develop a project plan with specific milestones, identify potential cost and ways to raise funds for the project, review the project plan every month with their mentor, carry out the project and turn in a document describing the lessons they learned

Mentorship Program

Each participant will be matched with a mentor to guide them as they plan and carry out the community project, learn from the training sessions and create their personal development plan.

Connecting to other leadership opportunities

After the successful completion of the program and community project, we are committed to helping graduates further their community and career development by connecting them to opportunities where they can utilize their leaderships skills, e.g., internship programs, jobs opportunities, appointment to Boards or Commissions, chances to network with successful AAPI professionals, etc.

AAPI Emerging Leaders Council:

Paolo Dizon
Ding Wen Hsu
Donna B. LaVigne
Chuong Le, Esq.
Kirk Matsuzaki
Eun Moredock
Joanne Tabellija- Murphy
Kit Williams
Erin Yoshimura