Empowering Early Activism: SJF Grantees Engage Youth

Educating and engaging youth in community activism is vital to accomplish social change. Two Social Justice Fund grantees, Seattle Young People’s Project (SYPP) and the Lummi CEDAR Project, have focused their efforts on organizing youth through political education and leadership development. These two organizations, serving different communities in different ways, truly embody SJF’s values, employing grassroots leadership and community organizing as a vehicle for social change.

Located in the heart of the Central District on Cherry St., the Seattle Young People’s Project is a youth-led, adult supported organization that empowers youth (ages 13-18) to express themselves and take action on the issues that affect their lives. Yasmeen Perez, Co-Director of SYPP, sees their work as a means to “build power for young people, by providing structure, resources and adult supporters.” According to Yasmeen, “youth organizing is a way for youth to address the root causes of the problems they face. Youth-created projects empower youth to take action on issues that are impacting them.”

Since action for justice must be informed by education, SYPP builds a foundation through a variety of institutes and workshops that instill historical perspective, an understanding of the forces at work and basic community organizing strategies. This year, SYPP successfully trained eight youth as political education workshop facilitators, steeping them in principles and methodologies of popular education. Collaboration with other local organizations enabled SYPP to bring “Project South,” an Atlanta-based community leadership development movement, to conduct their “BAM! Building a Movement” workshop, in which fifteen SYPP youth participated.

To train more new leaders in anti-oppression consciousness and techniques, SYPP launched “Project Liberation,” a team of youth trainers who create and facilitate interactive social change workshops. This summer, SYPP hosted their 2nd SYPP Youth Organizing (YO!) Institute, a two-week youth-organized program that trained new youth leaders in the basics of community organizing and SYPP’s Anti-Oppression analysis. Participants in the YO! Institute went through workshops led by community members, including several workshops by Project Liberation, about Youth Organizing, Undoing Racism, and the WASL.

This summer SYPP is launching their Education Justice Campaign to address the WASL graduation requirement and other injustices that students face in the school system. Project Liberation created a workshop about the WASL to help educate youth about the effects of a graduation exit exam. State legislators passed a law that will enact the WASL as a graduation exit exam, beginning in 2008. According to statistics from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2004 only 38.8% of 10th grade students passed all sections of the WASL needed for graduation; rates were even lower for low-income students, special education students, and English Language Learners. SYPP’s goal is to mobilize youth across the city to take part in a youth led campaign to address the WASL and alternatives to standardized testing.

Funds from SJF Northwest support SYPP’s general operating expenses, “so we can continue to support strong youth leadership and community action,” emphasized Co-Director Yasmeen Perez. SJF Northwest’s three-year support grant promotes broad participation, and engenders hope and optimism. To Yasmeen and her SYPP associates, the excitement of this mix of education, conversation and action is “really inspiring. I love when youth at SYPP come into the office ready to talk about breaking down the oppressive things they are experiencing. Through these projects, youth learn critical community organizing skills and anti-oppression analysis, to help them become leaders of the progressive social change movement.”

Check SYPP’s website, www.sypp.org, for upcoming activities, including the 10th Annual Young Women’s Conference, Education Justice Campaign meetings every Tuesday and Thursday, plus the next Project Liberation member training, slated for September 2006.

The People of the Lummi Nation have inhabited the Pacific Northwest since time immemorial, and they continue to envision their homeland as a place “where all are encouraged to succeed and none are left behind.” Members of the Coastal Salish Family, the Lummi have traditionally adhered to a family-centered, village-oriented social structure, in which the elders are accorded the utmost esteem.

Traditionally, young people learned through respectful listening and observation, but today, many youth seek opportunities to participate actively in tribal decision-making and improving community life. Lummi youth constitute a sizeable portion of the current tribal population; over 44% of the 4171 enrolled tribal members are under age 25.

Based in Bellingham, tribal leaders developed the Lummi CEDAR Project to facilitate restoration of Lummi values, traditions and life ways, and to promote healing. The tribe responded to the challenge of keeping cultural pride and community alive by engaging youth. According to Tami Chock, Lummi Project Manager, the work of the CEDAR Project has successfully organized a group of youth, adults and tribal elders in a collective leadership-development initiative. “Youth and adults are partnering to lead the project and facilitate more youth ‘stepping-up’ to take greater responsibility. We are also a social change project with the Kellogg Foundation, so we are networked with other social justice organizations around the country doing similar work.”

Tami described the basic strategy they have utilized to create a youth-led structure in this rural, indigenous community: “To connect young people to community resources, develop leadership and community-building skills, and develop pathways for youth to participate in and influence tribal decision-making.”

The power of belonging and identity has “helped bridge the communications gap between adults and youth,” according to Tami. “One amazing success that’s happened so far has been the collective leadership among youth, adults and elders, acknowledging the contributions that each brings to the community.” By creating respectful, trusting and nurturing environments where young people feel valued and respected, the project intends to provide pathways for youth to participate in community healing, and to take collective action toward positive social change.

SJF Northwest funding for the Lummi CEDAR Project supports the current leadership development project, which is designing a website that incorporates online marketing and fundraising functionality. Future activities include the completion and opening of the Teen Center in a Lummi housing project, as well as development of a large scale youth center at Lummi. Tami shared an enthusiastic endorsement of the Lummi youth. “With whatever we are working on, it makes my day to see them take the lead and be inspired to take action.”

SJF values of community self-determination, empowerment, risk-taking, hope and optimism are clearly reflected in the work of the Lummi CEDAR Project and the Seattle Young People’s Project.