Mikva Challenge develops youth to be informed, empowered, and active citizens and community leaders. We do this by engaging youth in action civics, an authentic and transformative learning process built on youth voice and youth expertise.

Core Values:

Our values challenge the status quo. Traditional schooling emphasizes adult lectures and students as passive learners.

Mikva Challenges adheres to the following core values when implementing our mission:

We believe that by providing high quality programming in under-resourced communities and schools, we can eliminate the civic achievement gap.
We believe that if youth voice is included in decision-making that policy makers will make more informed decisions.
We believe that the best way to learn democracy is to do democracy.
We believe action civics is an essential tool to help young people develop the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to be informed, empowered, and active citizens.
We believe youth are not apathetic, and that by inviting them into the political process they will become powerful and thoughtful citizens.
We believe that Mikva Challenge always needs to be nonpartisan to allow young people to formulate their own opinions and choose the candidates and issues they want to support.

Vision:

Mikva Challenge envisions a world where:

Citizens are informed, empowered, and active
Youth voice is valued in decision making
Civic leaders reflect the nation’s diversity
Action civics is prioritized in education

Education

Non Profit

Social Impact

Mikva Challenge

Verneé Green

Elly Leman

Leah Brown Schneck

Voncia Monchais

Heather J. Davis

Carla Rubalcava

Nikki Rucker M.ed

Barbara Rykaczewski

The Program Management Team at Mikva Challenge oversees the design, implementation, and evaluation of youth engagement programs that promote action civics and empower young leaders. This team collaborates with educators, community partners, and youth councils to ensure that programming is impactful and aligns with organizational values. They also provide training and resources to enhance the capacity of staff and volunteers, fostering a generation of informed and active citizens.

Program Management Team

Leadership Team

Program Management Team

About

Team members

Other teams at Mikva Challenge

Leadership Team