MMYC's Langley Park Open House Draws Big Crowd

When Will Campos first heard about the Latin American Youth Center, back in 2003, he thought, "We've got to get them into the county." At the time, Campos was Hispanic Liaison to Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson.

A lot has changed in four years.

Will Campos now represents Langley Park, Hyattsville, Chillum, Adelphi and other neighborhoods as the Council Member for Prince George's County Council's 2nd district.

And LAYC's Maryland Multicultural Youth Centers (MMYC) is playing a growing role in the lives of Prince George's County's young people and their families.

LAYC expanded into Maryland in 2005, creating the Maryland Multicultural Youth Centers.

Today, MMYC offers youth development programs and services through two sites in Prince George's county -- its Langley Park office on 7411 Riggs Road and the Center for Educational Partnership, a collaboration with the University of Maryland in Riverdale. It also has a Montgomery County office in Silver Spring.

Council Member Campos was among the dozens of people -- community leaders, residents and interested youth -- who turned out on February 5th to celebrate the official opening of MMYC's Langley Park office, which was recently expanded to create a youth drop-in center and to enable GED classes at the site.

Attendees talked with MMYC case workers and staff and heard more about the SAFER Latinos initiative, a collaboration of George Washington University Department of Prevention and Community Health, LAYC/MMYC and the Council of Latino Agencies to reduce youth violence in Langley Park.

Mark Edberg, the Principal Investigator for SAFER Latinos, explained that the project's focus is to address multiple factors that contribute to violence. In addition to targeting schools and families, SAFER Latinos will seek to address community alienation and mistrust which prevent youth and families from accessing critical social services. The initiative will provide altenatives to gangs, reaching out to youth though the schools.

Addressing the strains and challenges that result from sequential migration, where different members of the same family come to the U.S. at different times, will also be an area of concentration. Through the project, eforts will be made to help recent immigrants better understand school, what's expected, how to stay in school and where to get help with language, cultural and other barriers to school success.

An important part of the multi-year project is to evaluate whether the programs and services are having an impact. Focus groups and surveys will be conducted and data on violence will be tracked to understand the outcomes of the SAFER Latinos intervention. SAFER Latinos is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.