The Navigator

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YCCS Students Rising Up & Taking Back Their Communities

When my journey began as the Campus Leader for the Civic Engagement Project at Progressive Leadership Academy (PLA), I knew this was the right place for me. This civics project would produce fruits to expand our students’ horizons, require them to think outside the box (their communities) and challenge them to explore global issues.

When we embarked on this voyage, we began by unpacking this year’s issues of study, which included Education, Immigration/Emigration, Policing/Incarceration, and Inter/Intra-communal Violence. My students and I were motivated and encouraged to exercise our voices.

When all participating campus leaders and their interns came together, representing Youth Connection Charter School, our collective voices clapped like thunder. We brainstormed together and studied the issues, which were vital to our students and their communities. Our students stood strong and firm with us, their Campus Leaders, and YCCS Civic Engagement Leaders. Our support inspired students to sound their trumpets!

PLA interns and students focused their project on Gun Violence and researched their issue from grassroots to root causes and worked together to promote and take actions. For instance, they created a survey to collect data from targeted groups, including formal/informal interviews with parents, peers, community members, teachers, and elected officials from Chicago and Springfield, Illinois. They interviewed state representatives, senators, and others in the political arena. They also conducted a voters’ registration drive, marches, rallies and peace circles, posted Tweets, and called elected officials to voice their concerns about Gun Violence.

At the YCCS Civic Engagement demonstrations of learning culminating event, the PLA team presentation was amazingly impressive! They shared their knowledge of research and resources, their actions, including social media posts. They made their demands clear to prevent gun violence and promote a healthier community through stricter gun Laws, creating more job opportunities within Black and Brown communities, providing before and after school funding, building affordable housing and community centers on vacant lots, and decreasing spending on policing to use more tax dollars toward education and youth employment.

–Patrice Allen

Progressive Leadership Academy

 

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We’ll Take This Wherever We Go

The first day I attended the internship I met Ms.Venson (Executive Director-YCCS). She told me the vision behind the civic engagement internship and it was compelling. I knew it wouldn’t be just an assignment but a vision that would shift the culture and energy in Black and Brown communities.

The YCCS civic engagement project is one of the biggest reasons I started doing research about poverty and gun violence. I participated in the project and showcase last year and it was an incredible experience. This year, I walked away with the First Place Prize for the Civic Engagement Team Project and other first place awards for my individual work. It was a very humbling experience.

The topic of the project was how poverty influences Intra-communal violence. The beginning was difficult. Many of the team members left the project. At some point, I lost focus. But I was the only person committed to finishing. Because I looked at it as more than an assignment. This is a harsh reality for many of us. And this reality is wrong! I wanted everyone to know that, whether I won or not.

To reduce intra-communal violence, we conducted marches, voter registration drives and spoke truth to power, demanding access to healthy food and nutrition, equitable and quality schools and education, investments in recreational centers, opportunities to engage in meaningful and sustainable work with living wages, and affordable housing and child care.

Being an intern at YCCS has helped me build and develop lifelong relationships with my peers and mentors that go beyond the internship. I have learned multiple techniques to combat poverty and violence from people all over the world. For instance, I attended intervention and prevention workshops in Los Angeles where I met people just as passionate as me about making our communities better place to live and grow.

I am deeply grateful for YCCS and everyone who made it possible for young leaders to come together in this internship and be more civically engaged and to take this knowledge everywhere we go. I look forward to coming back and helping to cultivate the next generation of leaders.

–Chyann McQueen

Class of 2018, CCA Academy

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The Streets are Watching. The question is what do we want them to see?

For YCCS students, the future is now.  What they partake in today will reflect in the health and wellness of their communities tomorrow. Their path to a bright, productive and healthy future depends on their ability to navigate and actively participate in democracy.  One of the best ways to accomplish this goal is to have students actualize their potential and to know their value as a civically responsible citizen.

Unfortunately, too many young people are disconnected from the democracy happening around them every day. If they’re lucky, they have an adult in their lives who discusses politics with them, or occasionally watch the news to keep up with current events that are unfolding within the government and with national policy.  

YCCS doesn’t rely on happenstance, but instead is very intentional about civically engaging youth and activating their desire for social justice and transformative change.  It is essential to empower and provide youth with a platform for their collective voices and concerns to be heard. It is incumbent upon us to educate them about the processes and functions of government, in addition to the importance for them to vote and to hold their elected officials accountable.

It has been inspiring to experience students’ development firsthand. Students have shifted from not believing  their voice and vote matter, to facilitating voter registration drives and hosting a governors’ forum, galvanizing their peers to become civically engaged.

Global Majority Youth Rising (GMYR) interns will continue to build upon their progress and momentum over the summer and into the fall, training on voter education. They plan to register new student voters and educate their peers about local, state and national politics, and how young people and communities of color are impacted by them.  

The streets will witness youth leading the charge to bring positive change to their schools and communities. The streets will know another future is possible, one that doesn’t involve violence, poverty, and incarceration.

 

Kofi Ademola

Civic Engagement Consultant

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Reflecting on YCLA Civic Engagement

Youth Connection Leadership Academy (YCLA) has committed to actively transform the narrative of our students through education to reflect a more accurate and historically honest perspective of past and current realities. We are vigilant to prevent the distortion of students’ histories and identities through the voices of oppression that do not protect the authentic social well-being of all peoples.

At YCLA, we have taken advantage of the Youth Connection Charter School (YCCS) Civic Engagement Challenge to explore, investigate, and study social justice and civic engagement issues that affect our students. This year, the YCLA civic engagement team focused on the closing of neighborhood schools in Englewood. They prepared a plan of execution, vetted the idea with the student body and school leaders, and came up with various steps to take action. At the community level, they conducted interviews, took pictures of the neighborhood conditions, and then postulated multiple questions to determine methods of intervention and education. The primary issue at the heart of our exploration was why the schools were closing. Students persisted by disseminating their research on the historical truth and political justifications about school closings to neighborhood residents. For instance, did you know that a school can’t be closed and reopened without being evaluated for maintenance costs? If the maintenance cost is less than closing the building, the school funds must be used for upkeep and to repair whatever is needed.

This project gave students, and me, the opportunity to establish relationships within the school and community that transcended all expectations. We learned more about ourselves as partners with the school community. We enjoyed learning and grew to understand when we work together, how we create the realities of educational progress and community building.

Dr. Ernest Gonzalez

YCLA Civic Engagement Campus Leader