The National Liberty Museum’s Young Heroes Outreach Program is a yearlong innovative, educational initiative empowering Philadelphia students in the areas of leadership, civic engagement, social justice, and critical thinking skills essential to the healthy development of our schools, communities, and society. Currently in 11 schools, the program is offered to one grade level in each school. It gives students the opportunity to learn about freedom, what it means to exercise agency through freedom and how to express personal freedom through social action.

The children participate in a tour of the National Liberty Museum, receive hero training through the Museum’s unique curriculum, and then form a Young Heroes Club aimed at completing a community action project. Among the issues YHOP clubs have chosen to address are: bullying, gun violence, school lunch health & nutrition, environmental cleanup campaigns, teen pregnancy, stray animals and safe driving. The students in the program become agents of effective social action and in the process, acquire the necessary confidence and zeal for it. The Young Hero’s Outreach Program is creating culture change and its participants are leading the way for us all.