Big 4 RAP program honors graduates at Paisley Magnet School

For the past 20 weeks this school year, a group of volunteers representing the Big 4 has mentored about 15 students through their first RAP program. RAP stands for Respect, Affirmation and Problem Solving. The mentors worked with the kids on self-affirmation, values, belonging, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, conflict resolution and peacemaking. The RAP graduation was held on May 17 at Paisley Magnet School. Paisley is also an International Baccalaureate® (IB) school and the values RAP advocates align well with those of the IB program.  During the ceremony, Dothula Baron talked about how when the Big 4 alumni were in school, they had social clubs they belonged to and they did everything together and bonded as friends. They want to bring this back through the RAP program and help students to get to know each other better and form relationshiops. When students get to know each other, they are more apt to support each other and become close friends. One way the students do this is through creating skits during their meetings that look at uncomfortable situations and how they could handle them. Several students demonstrated their skits on stage. Even though they were obviously nervous about performing in...