08/24/2014
Introducing the YOUR DISCOVERY PLACE:
The Your Discovery Place is a 13,000 sq. ft. facility that will be a state-of-the-art learning and technology center located in Prairie View, TX, near the campus of the Prairie View A & M University. The center will focus on education, housing, and workforce development. The concept of the facility encompasses the entire family in the training process. While the parent is developed for the workforce, under-school-aged children will attend as well. A daycare will be available for children between the ages of 0 and 3. At 3, the children will enter into pre-school to prep for entry into kindergarten, where they will be taught to read and appropriate classroom behavior. Children attending public school will participate in the after-school program. The Your Discovery Place also provides for housing on site while the family participates in the transformation toward self-sufficiency. Housing has been incorporated to alleviate this stress as the family participates in the training process. The Your Discovery Place will house up to 50 families. Additionally, an early learning laboratory will be incorporated into the facility, where research will be conducted on the efficacy of teaching children to read at age 3 and monitoring their progress through age 5. Children will be taught according to the STOPLIGHT PHONICS in ACTION EARLY LEARNING Curriculum. This facility will have several trade schools --- such as cosmetology, barbering, construction technology, computer literacy classes, and other job related skills training. A resource center and adult literacy training laboratory is a major aspect of the building. To boost their success at independent living, participants must complete Financial Literacy and Housing Counseling training. The Your Discovery Place is an audacious goal, but nevertheless feasible, as a facility of its kind is needed as a model for combating the massive poverty that exists in Texas --- poverty that stems from poor literacy and the inappropriate availability of job related training. The Your Discovery Place will be the home of the WREM SPIL and YouthBuild Projects as well. WREM SPIL works with single mothers and young adults that age out of foster care to prepare them for earning a sustainable income, while nurturing them in the preparation for self-sufficient and independent living. YouthBuild trains young men in the art of vertical and horizontal construction. Under YouthBuild, students learn the process of residential construction from design to completion of the construction. Grant funding will be used to construct the multifamily housing complex, where the family will reside on the campus of the Your Discovery Place during the training process. Exclusive of WREM SPIL and YouthBuild, living on the site of the Your Discovery Place is voluntary.
