The Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board (MAWIB) provides services to youth/young adults between ages 14 -21 to increase their participation in integrated work and learning opportunities. With the help of MAWIB’s partners, Milwaukee youth and  young adults are offered paid and unpaid work experiences, tutoring and adult mentoring, leadership and occupational skills training, guidance and counseling, support services, and summer employment through one of the largest summer youth programs in the state of Wisconsin, Earn & Learn.

MAWIB ‘s youth services department offers the following services and programs:

YouthBuild is a program that assists young people, ages 16-24, with obtaining their GED or high school diploma, as well as helping them learn job skills and serve their communities by building affordable housing. The program helps this group of people transform their lives and roles in society.
 
To be eligible for MAWIB’s YouthBuild program youth must be:

16 – 24 years old,

ex-offenders, homeless, and/or in foster care,

a high school dropout, and low Income (according to the Department of Labor).

MAWIB offers a culinary arts program to youth through a unique partnership with Milwaukee Area Technical College and Wisconsin State Fair. The program gives youth the opportunity to develop their culinary skills with an introduction to hands-on work experience in the food-service industry.

In the summer, youth participate in the six-week culinary arts program at the Tommy Thompson Youth Center (TTYC) during the period Wisconsin State Fair is open. At TTYC youth are trained in the ins and outs of the overall food-service industry including food preparation, inventory, overhead and sanitation. Throughout the training youth participants plan, prepare and serve over 21,000 meals to visitors each summer. When the training is complete youth receive the nationally-recognized certificate from the American Restaurant Association SERV SAFE and gain invaluable skills. 

Earn & Learn is a summer youth employment program initiated by Mayor Tom Barrett. The program’s major partner is the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board (MAWIB), and includes other partners such as nonprofit and for-profit businesses, and community- and faith-based organizations. Earn & Learn assists young people in making a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood by providing them opportunities to enhance their work-readiness skills and job experiences.

Youth participating in the Earn & Learn program can choose among several summer employment tracks. If youth are interested in working in the private sector and/or as an intern, they have to be age 17 or older and are placed at a business through the assistance of the Mayor’s Office. If youth are interested in working in the nonprofit sector and/or with a community-based organization, their employment is coordinated by MAWIB and they can choose to work with over 70 participating organizations.

The Milwaukee Conservation Leadership Corps (MCLC) is a program that engages city high-school students in meaningful year-round and summer work focused on environmental stewardship and conservation. The program is made possible by a partnership between MAWIB, Johnson Controls and the Student Conservation Association (SCA). MCLC not only prepares teens for the workforce, but connects them to their community’s green space. The program reinforces the importance of the ever expanding green economy and the conservation movement.

Through environmental education and hands-on service to the land, Milwaukee teens are becoming an integral part of the maintenance of public lands and the reduction of waste.