Our Programs

We cultivate learning spaces where youth strengthen their community, critical consciousness, and communication skills.

Supporting Educators

We strengthen educators’ toolkits to position proximate youth as leaders for social change.

Through our Teacher Fellowship, we train and pay high school teachers to facilitate the Vocal Justice curriculum at their schools. Most fellows integrate Vocal Justice into an existing class, others run it as an after-school club. Teacher fellows also participate in community-building and liberatory professional learning workshops.

80% of our Teacher Fellows teach in our priority regions: Chicago, IL., Detroit, MI., Atlanta, GA., Jackson, MS., and New Orleans, LA.

Starting in FY24, we’ll expand access to our curriculum and professional learning workshops by working with schools, districts, and out-of-school organizations. To learn more about how we plan to do it, check out our strategic plan.

Supporting Youth Leaders

Once young people have completed our year-long curriculum, they have the opportunity to lead social change projects in their communities with our support.

Young people want to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to address the issues that matter to them most. To help them do that, we will:

  1. Partner with local organizations that can host and guide our program alumni in their work.

  2. Pay young people to complete this work, so they can do it sustainably.

  3. Offer workshops on social change leadership so they can continue to develop their leadership skills and build community with other youth leaders.

To learn about some of the organizations we may partner with, view the database.

Youth Leadership Summit

In Spring 2023, we hosted our first Youth Leadership Summit, convening youth leaders and adult allies for learning and collaboration. In addition to attending leadership workshops, youth attendees delivered presentations on how to address injustices in their communities; and develop relationships with other youth leaders, elected officials, educators, and adult organizers.

Testimonials