Dixon-Stephens Leaders Institute
The YMI Cultural Center has inaugurated the Dixon-Stephens Leaders Institute, a 10-week leadership cohort program that addresses the personal, cultural, civic, and professional needs of emerging African American leaders in Asheville City and Buncombe County.
The DSLI works to build a group of transformative African American leaders, ages 22-35, who hold a lifelong commitment to create lasting change in the African American community.
Through training, fellowship, mentorship, and project-based learning, participants spend 10 weeks exploring what it means to be a transformative black leader rooted in a historical context of the founding leadership of the Young Men’s Institute (YMI). They will gain the specific skills necessary to actualize this concept in the everyday work they are doing in the community.
The program opened its first session in March 2014.
The YMI was established in 1893 as the Young Men’s Institute, envisioned as a location for black men to improve their moral fiber through self-governance and offering guidance, training, and self-actualization in education, economics and entrepreneurship.
Today the organization, a nonprofit cultural center, offers exhibitions, lectures, collaborative class offerings, income tax assistance for low income citizens, and asset management resources.
For more information, visit the YMI Cultural Center at www.ymiculturalcenter.org. To learn more about the Dixon-Stephens Leaders Institute please contact Program Director Dr. Lamar Hylton at [email protected].
