CasYL's Philosophy

The Cascade Youth Lighthouse (or CasYL) is a 24-hour youth cooperative located in Portland, Oregon. It is a youth-helping-youth, home-away-from-home, do-it-ourselves resource center, dedicated to creating a space where we, as young people, can focus totally on our talents and passions.

Our purpose is to empower freethinking children who need an alternative to school to discover who they are spiritually, psychologically and creatively by practicing meaningful, genuine participation in the "real" world. We also offer opportunities to home and school students who wish more leadership experiences in their lives.

Some Highlights about CasYL's Philosophy

What children need:

• Ownership: Children's rights include substantive voice as well as ownership in the institutions which serve them.
• Connection: Children thrive best on stable and deep relationships and community, that generally require years to build.
• Tools: Children need resources much more than instruction.
• Reality: Children need and understand meaningful, effective activities.
• Spirituality: Children need the daily acknowledgement and support of their "spiritual" development.
• Space: Children need to be respected for their 'mistakes" and their "flaws," their play and their "daydreaming," and their energy and their curiosity.
• Visibility: Children need to be honored much more for their being, character and effort than for their accomplishments.
• Harmony: Children need to live in win-win environments where everyone appreciates cooperation, each other's special strengths and the far-reaching impact of their choices.
• Self-actualization: Children must be allowed the time and the support to fulfill their unique potentials, beginning at an early age, even to the detriment - if they so choose - of being "well-rounded" individuals.
• Honesty: Children need to be allowed to pursue truth through questioning authority, habit and convention.
• Discovery: Children need to express themselves creatively, to re-invent and re-build "the wheel" in as many arenas as possible, to take risks and to have adventure in their lives.
• Understanding: Children need wholesome, child-friendly, compassionate environments - never punishment or immobilization, and seldom medication.
• Enthusiasm: Children need to live, grow and stretch from the core of their being rather than from the fear of punishment or the expectation of praise, approval, payment or other external reward.

For additional information or an application kit, contact the CasYL Membership Committee at 503-245-1938 or email us at youthlighthouse@attbi.com