The East Coast

Boston Youth Organizing Project (BYOP)
BYOP is a live community of youth and adults who are fighting for justice in the Boston area and beyond! We are involved in local, regional, and national projects for social and youth justice!

Future of Tomorrow /Cypress Hill Advocates for Education
The Community Organizing Division brings local residents together to advocate for positive change in their community. Cypress Hills Advocates for Education (CHAFE): Parents and residents who work to improve local public schools. Future of Tomorrow (FOT): Young people who organize to improve local high schools. After years of hard work and persistence, Cypress Hills Advocates for Education won approval and financing for a new K-8 school, being constructed on Jamaica Avenue and Richmond Avenue, which will help alleviate the persistent problem of overcrowding in our local schools. Future of Tomorrow won a commitment from the Department of Education for funding to create a Student Success Center at Franklin K. Lane High School, which will provide mediation, college counseling, and job placement, among other services.

Make the Road New York
Make the Road New York promotes economic justice, equity and opportunity for all New Yorkers through community and electoral organizing, strategic policy advocacy, leadership development, youth and adult education, and high quality legal and support services. Make the Road New York (MRNY) was created in the fall of 2007 through the merger of Make the Road by Walking and the Latin American Integration Center, two of New York City’s most innovative and effective grassroots organizations. The merger was a natural partnership that built on proven successes and created a new citywide organization that combines democratic accountability to low–income people and an innovative mix of strategies to confront inequity and economic injustice, while fostering deep and active community roots. Our organization is membership–led and based in the low–income communities of Bushwick, Brooklyn, Elmhurst, Queens, and Port Richmond, Staten Island. Our 5,000+members are primarily low–income Latino/a immigrants, seventy–five percent of whom are women.

Youth on the Move/ Mothers on the Move (MOM)
MOM was founded in 1992 by South Bronx mothers demanding equity for their children in the very unequal NYC public schools. MOM brings parents and students to the table with the Department of Education, elected officials, principals and administrators, as we believe participation and power are essential components to guaranteeing quality and equity in public education.  MOM also researches and documents the effects of educational experiments such as the emergence of empowerment schools & small schools; the rampant use of “special education;” and the turnover of school security to the NYPD. We use these results to further educate and empower the community to demand change. Youth on the Move is our youth organizing project and their campaigns are: School Safety at Bronx Guild High, Youth Led Group at Banana Kelly High, & Restore the School Budget! YOM students joined others across the city to demand the mayor restore the $99 million proposed cuts to public education.

Philadelphia Student Union (PSU)
The Philadelphia Student Union is an independent, community based organization led by young people with adult support. PSU exists to build the power of young people to secure a high quality education in the Philadelphia public school system. Through leadership development, political education, and direct action organizing PSU builds power to win concrete gains in teacher quality, school funding, whole school transformation, positive school climate, student supports and other issues. PSU members use media production as a powerful tool in the fight for educational equity. PSU youth leaders go on to be leaders in their communities, colleges, other organizations, and in the city of Philadelphia.

Sistas and Brothas United (SBU)/Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
SBU’s mission is to develop the leadership of youth in the Northwest Bronx community who are concerned with the conditions in their neighborhood, interested in developing creative ways to address these problems in concrete ways, and believe in their own ability to build people power to hold all public officials accountable for the decisions they make. SBU’s leaders fight for educational justice, more jobs for youth and community residents, and for more community-based resources.

Youth Education Alliance (YEA)
The Youth Education Alliance is a youth-led group of teenagers and young adults who know that we have the power to make a change. We bring youth together to identify the problems in our schools and solve them collectively.  We build the critical thinking skills, leadership skills and organizing power of young people to advance a vision of high-quality public education for every student in the District of Columbia. YEA believes that students in the capitol of the most powerful nation in the world should have an education second to none; and we are fighting, one issue at a time, to create the structural and institutional changes that will bring that vision to life.

Youth United for Change (Y.U.C)
Youth United for Change is an organization dedicated to developing young leaders in Philadelphia and empowering them to improve the quality of education and services in their communities to better meet their needs. This is done through a process of institution-based community organizing where a diverse group of young people comes together to identify common concerns and takes collective action to address them. Through Y.U.C.’s organizing model, young people have been able to address a variety of issues from safer streets to college preparation. The most recent issues include: School Libraries, Multi-Cultural Curriculum, Computer Technology and the “Digital Divide”, College and Career Preparation, Building Facilities, Privatization of Philadelphia’s Public Schools, Student Educational Plan for Philadelphia Public High Schools.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 24th, 2010 at 12:23 am. It is filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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