It starts with a label: Learning Disabled. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Too often, it also ends there. That’s where Project Eye-to-Eye comes in. As the only national mentoring program pairing kids with LD/ADHD with similarly labeled college students, Project Eye-to-Eye encourages labeled children to become their own best advocates.

These kids need a safe place. They need, like all children, to be heard. And most of all, they need self-confidence. With Project Eye-to-Eye, they find not just a safe place, but also a great place. And it’s fun! “Regular” school reminds children with LD/ADHD of what they can’t do. With Project Eye-to-Eye, it’s all about can do.

Using an art-based curriculum, individual and group projects guide children to unearth their own potential, in their own way and on their own timetable. Art removes the child’s barriers to learning: there are neither rules nor expected outcomes. Each child learns his strengths and comes to value them. They see that there are many ways to solve a problem. Because they set their own expectations, they aim high, and use their newfound skills and confidence back in the classroom.

The mentors make all the difference. They are empathetic, well-trained and deeply committed college students with LD/ADHD who have all faced the same challenges as the children they support. Project Eye-to-Eye kids see a hopeful future in their mentors.

Already 38 chapters strong and growing, Project Eye-to-Eye’s grassroots, boots-on-the-ground approach to mentoring uses partnerships with parents, communities, schools, and universities to create a network of advocates surrounding the child.

“Graduates” of Project Eye-to-Eye’s mentoring programs overwhelmingly report increased self-esteem, a newfound ability to self-advocate and a greater appreciation of how their own minds work. The label? It’s still there, but it now also speaks of strengths.

On a warm day in 1998 in Providence, Rhode Island, a group of LD/ADHD labeled college students from Brown University sat in a circle with a group of elementary school students labeled with learning disabilities from Fox Point Elementary. They were a part of a program called Project Eye-To-Eye, a public service project run by and for students with academic labels such as learning disabled (LD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The program had one simple goal: match labeled adults with learning disabilities with labeled elementary school students to act as role models, tutors, and mentors as a means to empower their learning and give them hope for their future.

On this day in 1998, the mentors worked with their mentees on art projects created to facilitate metacognitive development, expression of emotion and creativity, and most importantly self-esteem building. On this day, the group of mentees found hope. Their mentors did as well.

The mentors, at the time, were attempting to simply do community service and take their experience of being labeled different learners and put it to good use. What they found as members of Project Eye-To-Eye was much more. After a lifetime of being subjected to the language of deficits and abnormalities, the mentors, along with their students, managed to transcend the labels foisted upon them in their past and created a community around shared life experiences and learning styles.

Years later, Project Eye-To-Eye is a national not-for-profit mentoring program changing the lives of thousands of children and young adults across the U.S. Everyday we give "at-risk" students the feeling of empowerment and connection to a community that is built on understanding and compassion for differences. Project Eye-To-Eye's program model is designed to build life skills for independence and improve self-esteem through the power of role modeling. Beyond the important work of building self-esteem, Project Eye-To-Eye also gives children with LD/ADHD the concrete skills necessary for independent living and academic success. Project Eye-To-Eye's research based mentoring model is also designed to improve self-advocacy skills and meta-cognitive abilities, skills proven to be essential to the life success of LD/ADHD adults.