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Founded in 2006, NOPLAY is the Youth Empowerment Project’s educational program, providing GED and basic literacy instruction to out-of-school youth and young adults between the ages of 16-24 from the Greater New Orleans region. NOPLAY is the only adult education provider in the city that specializes in providing literacy and educational services to this population.
NOPLAY has grown steadily over the past seven years and has a proven track record of success.
To date, NOPLAY has produced 186 GED graduates and our students continue to demonstrate significant academic gains. During the 2011-2012 fiscal year, 84 percent of our students showed improvements in math; 77 percent showed improvements in language; and 64 percent showed improvements in reading. Further, in 2011-2012 fiscal year NOPLAY improved its retention rate from 79 percent to 94 percent.
During the summer of 2011, NOPLAY recently achieved a significant milestone – as we celebrated our 100th GED graduate, Darren Alridge. To read the Times Picayune article on Darren click here.
In addition to the classes we offer at the main NOPLAY site in Mid-City, in September of 2011, YEP began offering GED classes to interested adults 16 and over who live in or around the Harmony Oaks community (the site of the former C.J. Peete housing development) and in September of 2012 we began running GED classes out of our new Youth Center located in Central city.
YEP continues to support NOPLAY youth after they complete the program, providing graduates with in-house ACT prep, ongoing employment and post-secondary support from our transition coach and financial support in terms of assisting with paying for college application fees and books. So far, our Transition Coach has helped graduates of our GED program enrolling in post-secondary institutions receive over $160,000 in scholarships as well as federal and private grants.
In its first year, NOPLAY served 25 youth. During the 2011-2012 fiscal year, NOPLAY served 780 youth and we anticipate serving over 1,000 youth during the 2012-2013 fiscal year.
In its first year, NOPLAY served 25 students. In 2012 – nearly six years after the program’s inception – NOPLAY serves over 800 students annually and has produced 193 GED graduates.