SMOA recognizes that youth today have a wide variety of ever expanding extracurricular activity options, to include on-line. In addition, many career pathways have extended to extracurricular options also, such as coding, for example.
Socio-economic inequity cannot be reduced by simply having skills in one area or the other, and as responsible youth ponder how to help their fellow youth, worldwide, the challenge becomes and starts with: "What do I possess, have expertise in, that could help make a definite difference?" Not every one has time for, or is drawn to music. Some are inclined to sports, while others to technological individual or team efforts, such as hardware/software, to include hackathons. Others are into cooking, or cheerleading. Some are into debate or scientific clubs, endeavors. Still others are business oriented, while others turn to drama.
As one advances from 1st grade to 12th grade, the recurring thought becomes, "How can I, interested in this or that or these, help my fellow youth advance against what seems insurmountable socio-economic challenges?" "While I have my studies, my specific extracurricular interests?"
SMOA's answer is: "Do what you do."
SMOA opines that each and every youth that has a particular extracurricular interest can leverage that into a service opportunity within SMOA. All youth that excel at a particular skill or talent can bring that to an underserved youth population and achieve valuable progress towards the reduction of social inequity.
Regardless of interest, each and every extracurricular activity or talent, is of interest to SMOA, and there will be interest in those served, to partake of that service. This allows any student with any interest to become a SMATON, work within the SMOA paradigm and deliver outstanding service to youth that are struggling against monumental challenges posed by socio-economic inequities.
Practically, this means that folks that like camping, orienting, hiking, campfires, geocaching, for example, can share these interests seamlessly to a group of youth who would be overjoyed to experience these skills. Same applies to drama, cooking, cheerleading, art, music, sports, debate, business leadership/development, hardware/software skills, and so forth. As diverse as SMATONS are, the underserved youths' interests are just as diverse. We are all human beings.
Socio-economic inequity cannot be reduced by simply having skills in one area or the other, and as responsible youth ponder how to help their fellow youth, worldwide, the challenge becomes and starts with: "What do I possess, have expertise in, that could help make a definite difference?" Not every one has time for, or is drawn to music. Some are inclined to sports, while others to technological individual or team efforts, such as hardware/software, to include hackathons. Others are into cooking, or cheerleading. Some are into debate or scientific clubs, endeavors. Still others are business oriented, while others turn to drama.
As one advances from 1st grade to 12th grade, the recurring thought becomes, "How can I, interested in this or that or these, help my fellow youth advance against what seems insurmountable socio-economic challenges?" "While I have my studies, my specific extracurricular interests?"
SMOA's answer is: "Do what you do."
SMOA opines that each and every youth that has a particular extracurricular interest can leverage that into a service opportunity within SMOA. All youth that excel at a particular skill or talent can bring that to an underserved youth population and achieve valuable progress towards the reduction of social inequity.
Regardless of interest, each and every extracurricular activity or talent, is of interest to SMOA, and there will be interest in those served, to partake of that service. This allows any student with any interest to become a SMATON, work within the SMOA paradigm and deliver outstanding service to youth that are struggling against monumental challenges posed by socio-economic inequities.
Practically, this means that folks that like camping, orienting, hiking, campfires, geocaching, for example, can share these interests seamlessly to a group of youth who would be overjoyed to experience these skills. Same applies to drama, cooking, cheerleading, art, music, sports, debate, business leadership/development, hardware/software skills, and so forth. As diverse as SMATONS are, the underserved youths' interests are just as diverse. We are all human beings.
