Ohio-West Virginia Youth Leadership Association

This is great! We get to be legislators sitting in the same seats and using the same facilities they use. I’ve learned more about civics and state government this way than from any book or classroom. We take what we learn in class and get to apply it. Some of the laws we propose have actually become state law. Judicial is great! We get to see how the judicial system works. I don’t want to be an attorney, but I need to understand the court.

The YLA Youth in Government program engages Ohio and West Virginia teens in a process of civic leadership development. Teens identify the kind of school and community they want, create and carry out volunteer initiatives to achieve their vision, and plan to strengthen future action. Out of real life experience, teens craft legislation for YLA's Youth in Government.

This approach develops life-long engaged citizens. It is a process. Youth engage in real life issues, learn and develop their responses thru volunteer action that informs the legislation presented at Youth in Government. YG is not about numbers, not the legislative ideas of adults, and not the public policy agenda of any adult trade association. YG is about creating life-long good citizens of our communities.

YG Program Components - Transformational Experiences, not an event

YLA local youth civic leadership groups
YLA leadership conferences
YLA Leadership-Service Summit each June at Horseshoe Leadership Center in WV. Once fully operational, OH-WV YLA’s new Ohio Cave Lake Center for Community Leadership will host teen Summits for Ohio youth and teens from other states
Ohio Youth in Government
West Virginia Youth in Government
Model United Nations

Legislation first proposed in Youth in Government now is seen in more than three hundred actual laws in our states including those that:

Require signal lights at railroad crossings
Reclaim strip mined land
Hold 18 year olds responsible for contracts they sign
Create the white line on the side of the road
Establish “right turn on red”
Establish Special Education
Provide for driver’s education
Promote campaign finance reform
Provide for medical malpractice reform

A significant accomplishment of YLA and Youth in Government is the July 1, 1971, ratification of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granting the vote to 18 year olds.

2012 OH Youth in Government

2012 WV Youth in Government