Santa Cruz County Teens Learn leadership from the Source in Emerging Leaders Program

When Santa Cruz County Cooperative Extension Director Rodolfo Martinez Morales was interviewing for his job last year, a member of the county board asked him what he could do for youth in the Arizona border county.

His answer was leadership development, and soon after he started the job, he began pulling together a program to help boost teens’ confidence, communication and other skills important to future leaders.

“The core of the program is to teach them that leadership is a career - you need to get training. Many people have natural skills to be a leader, but the majority of leaders go to school. They get trained. They study,” Martinez said.

A key to the program’s success is hearing – directly from community leaders like the mayor of Nogales – what skills are needed in the workforce and beyond. Emerging Leaders included sessions on environmental stewardship from the Friends of the Santa Cruz River and Friends of Madera Canyon.

“They talked about sharing your expertise, putting it in the hands of the community without expecting anything in return. You don’t have to get money to give your spare time and your knowledge but you’re going to be valuable for the community in a way that you will never imagine,” Martinez said.

The group meets once per month for an entire day – five times per school semester during the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. Each session includes morning classes, then afternoon field trips to government agencies, businesses, non-profit organizations, and natural areas to facilitate learning and understanding of the social and natural resources across communities in Santa Cruz County.

Classroom topics include emotional intelligence, mental health, self-awareness, public speaking, financial literacy, ethics, work-life balance and healthy lifestyles, project development and management, and a wide range of leadership skills.

Key learning field trip experiences included a walk along the Santa Cruz River, a hike at the Santa Rita Experimental Range, a family farm in Rio Rico, a finance workshop at Vantage West Credit Union, the Nogales fire station, Extension's Tucson Village Farm, and a trip to University of Arizona for an ethics symposium.

Sofia Alejandra Gimeno-Pereida, 15, is a Nogales High School freshman in the sixth month of Emerging Leaders. The value goes beyond just being a good leader, Gimeno-Pereida said.

“I think it helps to make us a better person. We started the program learning about emotional intelligence, how to understand other people and put yourself in their place. It helps people get along, because it helps us think like the other person,” she said.

Emerging Leaders teaches the teens about human nature and psychology, dealing with stress and emotions and how to develop, schedule and accomplish goals, Martinez said.

“What are the most important goals in your life, in your profession? How do you prioritize your goals, and how do you land those goals according to your schedule? All of that is taught in the program,” he said.

Scott Koenig, who spoke to the group, is director of Extension’s Project CENTRL, supported by the public/private collaboration the Arizona Center for Rural Leadership. For 41 years, Project CENTRL has been training adult leaders, many of whom went on to successful careers in business or politics.

Emerging Leaders fits hand-in-hand with Project CENTRL to prepare our workforce for government and social work, forestry, agriculture, natural resources, health care and other industries, he said.

“A natural way to address the issues facing these industries is with passionate, creative youth who can see in their formative years ways they can thrive and lead in their very own communities,” Koenig said.

Benjamin Corella, 13, learned about Emerging Leaders at Mexicali Academy, where he is in eighth grade. The program helped him be a more confident in conversation and public speaking and learn how to disagree with others. He is sure it has made him better person, he said.

“To be honest, even though I cannot tell you an exact answer how it will help me, I can tell you that this program will help me in a way that I will discover. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but I know it will help me,” he said.

The work has helped him focus more on how to collaborate with and help others and helped him navigate being a bilingual student, he said. Emerging Leaders was funded initially by Santa Cruz Cooperative Extension alone, but in the past year, others have agreed to contribute. The Mexican Consulate pitched in $6,000, and Vantage West Credit Union has expressed interest in offering training and economic support.

For information about other Extension youth development programs, see our 4-H page. For information about Project CENTRL, see the Arizona Center for Rural Leadership website.