Guides & Workshops

Since 2010, when a racially diverse group of young people from communities across Mississippi came to Winter Institute and Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute staff with a desire to help their communities, SYI has evolved into a nine-day experiential learning program, emphasizing four cornerstones:

• Relationship Building 
• History 
• Diversity, and 
• Civic Engagement

At SYI, rising high school sophomores and juniors from Mississippi learn about civil rights, advocacy, critical thinking and relationship building from an international staff.

The program has six primary objectives:

• Build understanding of concepts and use of tools for relationship building and trust building (listening, dialogue, etc.) in Mississippi’s youth 
• Increase awareness, understanding and need of myriad types of diversity and interculturalism in a local, state, national and global context 
• Expand knowledge of and appreciation for Mississippi Civil Rights history and its relationship to movements around the nation and world 
• Impart the principles of conflict transformation and interdependence and how to apply these principles in real-life situations 
• Illustrate for students the fundamentals of civic and community engagement 
• Inculcate in SYI students an enduring anti-racism and racial reconciliation perspective to bring to personal and professional situations throughout their lives