Directory

Aber Kawas has been a burgeoned community organizer and activist for the Brooklyn and NYC community. She has completed a degree in International Studies from the City College of New York where she was the president of the Muslim American Psychologist Club. She worked as the Voter Registration Fellow at the Arab American Association of New York, where she worked to register over 2500 minority voters, and The Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project, where she participated in citywide organized efforts to uphold the rights and dignity of the +20,000 food and merchandise vendors in New York City. Aber also has interned for CAIR New York and was an active member of MAS Youth New York and American Muslims for Palestine. Aber has also pursued her masters in Social Work and wants to work to improve the conditions of immigrants in the New York area by providing programs and services to both them and their children.

Adriana studied Psychology at Santa Fe Community College, where she was a Student Ambassador. Part of her job as an Ambassador was to focus on student retention and graduation. She has also been a part of the Literacy Volunteers of Santa Fe, which worked to lower the rates of illiterate people in New Mexico. She has also done work for human rights, such as LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, and the Coalition for Prhasoner’s Rights. Her main focus was to improve the education system and work with students. She has become a licensed theraphast and has worked with schools as a counselor.

Aimee is a member of the Fort Peck Sioux tribe and has lived her entire life on the Yakama Reservation. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Social Welfare. In the summer of 2012, Aimee participated in the AFSCME Union Scholars Program where she interned as a union organizer at UCLA. Aimee wants to use her experience with union organizing to alleviate institutional discrimination at the community level. In addition to the labor movement, Aimee has been dedicated to addressing the disproportionate representation of Native American children in the foster care system and work to place Native children in Native homes. She has used the foundation of her personal and educational experience as a jumped off point for something meaningful and productive for the Native community.

Alaysha attended Temple University and studied African American Studies. She has been involved in the facilitation of youth safe spaces and has facilitated a media-focused social justice internship for high school students. Her blueprint has also focused on similar capacity building with Black and Brown girls at a near by middle school. Alaysha also mentors for Big Brothers Big Sisters and has been involved on campus with Temple’s BSU and NAACP.

Alex Holland studied political science and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and aspires for a career in public service. He co-founded the Bipartisan issues Group to open dialogue about the issues our nation faces. In addition to serving in both the Wisconsin state capitol and national capitol, Alex has represented UW-Madison on the cold, windy slopes as a member of the UW-Madison Alpine Ski Team.

Alexander has been an activist for social equality. He attended Northern Arizona University where he has a Sister of Tau Beta Sigma, the band service sorority created with the intent to support women and diversity in music. In addition, he has been an active member for PRISM to strengthen his knowledge and broaden his views of the perception of equality. With this goal, he intends to help lead forces that push for change in Arizona to increase inclusiveness and support of the LGBT community..

Alex was a first generation scholar at Tougaloo College. He was the co-founder of youth immigrant group Youth Organizers United (YOU), which advocated for advancement in education and comprehensive immigration reform. He has been dedicated to providing the immigrant community with knowledge regarding laws and policies that do – or could – affect them, as well as battled policies that negate basic human rights.

Alex has been a student at California State University, Long Beach, where he studied Political Science and Sociology. He was a community organizer with a nonprofit organization, the Orange County Congregation Community Organization, where he had the opportunity to work on a variety of issues that are important to the diverse communities of Orange County, that ranging from immigration reform to education to voting. With a background in student activism and community organizing, Alex seeks to find ways to engage the community, focused particularly on youth and seeking ways to get them engaged in the issues that are going on in their communities and, in effect, empower themselves. He eventually wishes to take what he has learned as an organizer and enter the field of public policy where he will focus on social policy.

Alexandra has demonstrated a strong commitment to expanding access and affordability to higher education through her work at the Oregon Student Association and as the Pacific Northwest Chair on the United States Student Association Board of Directors. After she helped pass Tuition Equity in Oregon, Alexandra has worked with students from across the country on developing a Tuition Equity toolkit for states that do not yet offer in-state tuition for undocumented students. She has been particularly concerned with combating the institutionalized barriers to higher education for students of color, LGBTQIA students, undocumented students, and students from other marginalized communities.

Alexandra (Allie) Lahey has been an unapologetic queer and feminist activist and Ohio State Organizer with URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, where she focused on civic engagement, trained and mobilized young Ohioans for reproductive justice.

She proudly hails from the Midwest and graduated from Bowling Green State University in 2014 with a BS in Human Development and Family Studies. She was student journalist and chapter leader with URGE, where she led the fight for accessible menstrual products and organized the first intersectional Take Back the Night rally on her campus.

As a 2013 Young People For Fellow, she worked on her campus to change sexual assault policies to make resources more accessible for survivors and has been an active alumni dedicated to training the next generation of progressive activists.

She also worked previously as an advocate at a domestic violence shelter, and with the American Association of University Women’s Tech Trek, a STEM camp for 8th grade girls. In her spare time, she likes to do trivia, travel, binge-watch Netflix and play with her cat, Mouse.

Alexandra was a Communications student at Millsaps College, and was extensively involved in the chapter of Amnesty International on her campus. She has done clinic defense work with the only women’s health clinic in all of Mississippi, and has also been an advocate for LGBTQ rights in both Mississippi, and her hometown of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Alexandria is from Ann Arbor, Michigan where she was a student at Washtenaw Community College majored in International Business and Economics. Her passion for nutritional awareness began at a young age when she realized how many local farmers were using pesticides. She broadened her horizons and was more aware and socially conscious of the impact of current conventional methods used in food production. Alexandria has always been drawn to work for companies that have been on the forefront of nutritional and environmental ethics, which led her to work at a local farm and at a Fortune 500 company. She hoped this program would give her the opportunity to guide others to understand nutritional awareness and environmental ethics.

Alexis has been an active member and leader of the Southerners on New Ground pilot program in Alabama. She has pursued a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and a minor in French. She has also been a part of many progressive groups at the University of Alabama.

Amonte’, who studied Agricultural Business student, attended Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. Amonte’ has been humble, passionate, eager, and committed to maked a difference in his community, and at his university, where he served as the 2012-2013 Mr. College of Agriculture and Food Sciences. With help from YP4, Amonte’ planned to start a non-profit organization to help empower, motivate, and aid single parents in the development of their children and themselves.

Andrea attended the University of Minnesota. She has worked on a variety of social justice issues, ranging from worked to get more gender neutral bathrooms on campus to voted rights. Her passion for social justice was really sparked when she spent fall semester of her junior year studying off campus in the Twin Cities through HECUA’s Inequality and America program. Andrea has been passionate about a wide variety of issues, and this was why she has been very excited to learn more about herself as to where her skills and passions align in the social justice field.

Angie Tran is a Vietnamese American, queer, first-generation college graduate who has been relearning and reclaiming her Vietnamese identity through her community work, travels, and her previous research from the Ronald E. McNair Scholars program. She is an advocate for her community in south Oklahoma City and is passionate about racial justice, education equity for students of color, Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) issues, youth empowerment, and higher education. She attributes her intellectual and personal growth in social justice issues to the relationships and experiences from the Young People For fellowship program (2013-2014), study abroad adventures in Ecuador, and summer internships with the OCA – Asian Pacific Advocates in Washington, D.C. and Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc. in Los Angeles. Each travel has enabled Angie to find and embrace her authentic self, her Vietnamese and queer identities, and her pride of being from Oklahoma, even if that means leaving Oklahoma too many times.

Arleya has been a National Board Member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a resident assistant at Xavier University of Louisiana. Her passion lies in the empowerment of communities through education and community organizing. She’s inspired by the words of Edmund Burke “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was for good men to do nothing,” and pushes to make a positive difference wherever she can. She is determined to continue work in environments that allow her to motivate and empower others.

Aurielle is a nationally renowned poet and activist, using her words and voice to promote justice and equality for women of color, abuse victims, and young people of color. Performing under the alias Ellevated, Aurielle has always dedicated her voice and art medium as a tool to amplify the necessity of social rectification in her urban community. Aurielle has partnered with many youth and minority driven programs, including Atlanta Word Works, to develop and initiate arts education programs in the metro Atlanta area. These programs, she feels, will kick-start vehicles of change by stimulating social awareness and providing platforms of open dialogue to mobilize this generation.

Austin has served as the Chief of Staff for the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) President. He is a friendly, compassionate, and hard-working person who is committed to fighting for social justice and building student power. Austin has also been a former organizer with Cal Students for Equal Rights and a Valid Education (CalSERVE), where he organized with students and workers to fight for change both within his university and community.

Ben is a Detroit native. He is a lover of good music and queer people. He has been empowered by his hometown and inspired by the glorious people he has met through these years. Ben couldn’t wait to meet the beautiful and visionary leaders of YP4.

Ben has lived and studied in California’s Santa Cruz, and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area as a high school speech and debate coach. He was a member of Sin Barras, an organization of those directly affected by police terrorism and allies dedicated to prison abolition. On campus, Ben has been a participant in anti-privatization struggles, an organizer for the incipient California Student Union (CASU), and an ally in decolonized education.

Bianca is a Hispanic-American aspiring writer, and burgeoning humanitarian. She sees YP4 as the perfect platform to help her make a lasting change in her community. Bianca’s passions are the arts, education, mental health, and human rights. She believes in every human being’s right to health, happiness, and prosperity. Her goal is to meet and work with like-minded individuals striving to make a change in the world.

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Brenda attended Oberlin College studying Comparative American Studies. Born and raised in Chicago, she takes particular interests in discussing and learning more about education including educational systems in urban areas, the privatization of education, education for undocumented people, or diversity in relation to transitioning into higher education. , Brenda has been involved with various campus organizations such as La Alianza Latin@, which serves as a safe-space for Latin@ identifying students. She mentored and tutored Oberlin middle and high school students through the Ninde Scholars program, in addition to being a peer mentor for Pell eligible and/or first-generation first-year students. Brenda plans on working in education in the future and hopes that opportunity will help her develop the skills and tools needed to create substantial change.

Brendien studied Political Science and Economics at Howard University, and he is prepared for his destiny. For the past 8 years, he has been active in civil and social justice as well as community development. He has argued in support of affirmative action, corporate accountability, and the Voting Rights Act on the steps of the Supreme Court, and continues to be a champion for economic development and educational equality. Brendien is a creative dreamer and decisive thinker with a vision for the future. Through YP4, Brendien continued his work in grassroots organizing and the civil rights movement.

Brian served as the Community Liaison and Campus Involvement Co-Chair of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) AZ Steering Committee. He also served as the President of the HRC@ASU chapter. Following direction and advice of the committee, Brian represented and served as a liaison of those involved with HRC at the local level with issues such as marriage equality, LGBT rights, inclusion, anti-discrimination, anti-bullying, etc

Kirby Jones was a student at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina who majored in English with minors in sociology and Spanish. She has worked to obtain a teaching licensure and hopes to dedicate her career to the empowerment of youth from a diverse array of interests and backgrounds. Kirby has a growing passion for human rights and social justice and believes that an equitable education system forms the infrastructure for a society. However, her coursework compelled her to confront the inequalities in our schools that inhibit many young people from fulfilling their full potential. Through the YP4 fellowship, Kirby seeks to create a series of culturally sensitive and culturally relevant workshops that will give students from marginalized populations the opportunity to think critically about and respond creatively to issues that impact the world around them.

Kyle Smith was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan; Kyle was inspired to make a difference in the education system after personally witnessing the lack of motivation from administrators and male educators throughout his academic years in public and private schools. Kyle studied in the Inclusive Early Childhood Education at Bowling Green State University with goals and aspirations of becoming a principal. At Bowling Green State University, he was an active participant in the university’s black student union, Chi Alpha Epsilon national honor society, and the Sidney A. Ribeau’s President’s Leadership Academy. It is Kyle’s goal to find and collaborate with individuals who want to develop a curriculum for all children that is safe, fun, and granted the proper resources, community activities, and lessons that involved diversity, mindfulness, inspiration, and uplift. During his downtime, Kyle enjoys journaling, readings on education policies, traveling, scratching items off his bucket list, and uplifting and empowering others on in person and through social media. Kyle also loves reading poetry and plans on writing a few books to empower and discuss different tips and techniques other educators can use and how they can incorporate mindfulness practices in daily school routines.

Lexus Phillips was a student at Spelman College, originally from Memphis, TN. She was a Comparative Women’s Studies major, focused on gender and sexuality, and minoring in Sociology. She is passionate in her belief that building relationships between communities is the best way to understand, celebrate, and work across difference. As a poet, she is particularly interested in the use of creative arts as both a healing practice for marginalized communities and a tool to use in social resistance movements. The majority of her organizing centered the inclusion of LGBTQ students on her campus through programming that provides spaces for critical discourse around the intersections of sexuality, gender, and race. Her work has extended beyond campus to establish an intercollegiate network of the LGBTQ student organizations of the colleges and universities in the Atlanta area with non-profit, queer-centered organizations of Atlanta.

Raised in New England, educated in the Midwest, and powered by California sunshine, Lisa currently calls Oakland, CA home. As a young queer womxn of color with Chinese biological roots, Korean cultural roots, and a mixed race chosen family, she thinks deeply about the intersection of lived experiences and data in policy and power. Lisa is a graduate of Macalester College, where she studied Geography, Environmental Studies, Political Science, and Community and Global Health. Her experiences include work with former sex trafficking victims, low-income youth, immigrants, and refugees; she has also worked with education and tech nonprofits and government agencies of varying scales, from local government and watershed districts to the United Nations Development Programme. In 2014, Lisa researched the intersection of the Syrian refugee crisis and Jordanian water scarcity crisis in Amman, Jordan. Her professional interests include water security, environmental justice, equitable health care, and community-driven development. Lisa is passionate about ensuring the right to health and a clean environment for communities of color and low-income immigrant communities, which she sees as foundational for other visions of social justice and racial equity. She is also a performer, writer, and director, committed to working with foster youth in the juvenile dependency system. Lisa was a 2013 Public Policy and Leadership Conference participant at the Harvard Kennedy School, a 2014 Public Policy and International Affairs Law Fellow at UC Berkeley, and a 2016 Hope Institute Fellow at the Democratic National Committee. She currently serves as Special Projects Coordinator at The Greenlining Institute, an Oakland-based racial justice policy nonprofit dedicated to economically and politically empowering communities of color in CA and across the States. In this role, she develops, implements, and leads Greenlining’s Post-Election Strategy through coalition-building, content generation, art activism, strategic relationship-building, research, policy, and mobilization.

Luis Fernandez is a first generation, non-traditional college student and is a senior at Rutgers University. He is an Equal Opportunity Fund (EOF) Scholar and is pursuing a major in Information Technology with a concentration in Social Entrepreneurship and Spanish. Luis currently serves as the Program Manager of the Google Community Leaders Program (CLP): New Brunswick. Their program also serves as the global model for Google, with the mission of bridging the digital divide. Luis served as the National Committee Chairman for the Google CLP Global Toolkit expansion initiative and will serve as the first-ever Global Executive Director of the Google CLP this upcoming year. He was also asked to serve on the Youth Advisory Board of Easter Seals, one of the largest nonprofits in the world that supports individuals with disabilities. Luis has had the honor of serving as the first person in Rutgers’ history to be elected to the National BIG Association of BIG Ten Students Board, representing 14 BIG Ten Schools and over 500,000 students across the nation on issues ranging from college affordability, mental health, and sexual assault. Through his work, Luis was able to attend briefings at the White House, Department of Education, was featured on USAToday and was selected as the Student Keynote Speaker for the United Nations International Campaign, HeForShe, launch at Rutgers. His past experiences include being a Resident Assistant, an Aresty Research Assistant, an EOF Scholar and served as a Rutgers Scarlet Ambassador. In the future, Luis wants to continue to pursue his passions of business, education, mentorship, and policy by working in the space of technology!

Maia Raynor is youth educator and activist, who’s happiest when pursuing justice in education, health or working with young people to develop tomorrow’s leaders. She is fueled by the desire to address and dismantle systems of oppression within institutions. After studying Peace and Justice Studies and Public Health at Tufts University and applying these academic concepts to her extracurricular activities on and off campus, she developed a critical lens with which to undertake the task of creating a more just world. Her passions include social justice organizing around issues facing marginalized communities particularly issues of housing and displacement. She has worked with Boston Healthcare for the Homeless as a Case Management intern and served with City Year as a Corps Member. She currently serves as the Teen Education Coordinator for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston and as a doula with the Boston abortion Support collective. Her drive for creating social change comes from the influence of her family and her experience growing up in a majority black neighborhood. Maia also enjoys writing poetry, art, and pancakes. She has hopes to become a midwife and advocate for alternative birth practices nationwide. From her experience working with youth organizations, NGOs and non-profits she is hopeful for the future and ready to create sustainable change!

Maura Pereira was born in York and brought to North Carolina at a young age. She slowly started noticing that the Latino community in Rural NX was being discriminated against and not being treated equally. She joined an organization called El Cambio, who at the time was fighting for immigration reform. The more she got involved she started noticing that at a local level her community was uneducated about their human rights and what was happening at a national level. She focused on educating her community and advocated for the expansion of DACA and DAPA. She continues to fight for those who are left out. She focuses on other reliefs available for those who are fleeing from Central America.

Michael Jorell Reyes strives to have his work speak for himself and his views of humanity’s needs. Wanting people to achieve the greatest self they can be, Michael is drawn to resource accessibility and the avenues for spreading awareness and change to the inequities people experience. Focusing on internationalization amongst three seemingly different groups of study, Michael found himself working in the realms of Engineering, Social Justice, and the Arts. Innovative alternatives that can curb global energy dependency on petrol oil fuels such as solar photo-voltaic cells and wind turbine were Michael’s research of focus. His pursuit of an Environmental Engineering degree is to remain at the forefront of developing technologies. Mr. Reyes has partaken in Wind Mitigation research at UF and has attended Florida Energy Systems Consortium located at UF. However, history shows development is only possible if considered a part of an engineering plan from inception. Here social justice and engineering planning blend in the form of legislative actions that considers all people and not just the wealthy elite. Michael has served as the Public Relations officer of CHISPAS UF, a club dedicated to accessibility for undocumented students; some achievements include a graduate practicum, a paid internship and a scholarship all eligible for undocumented students. Raising awareness isn’t only signing papers but can creatively require the arts to further agendas of equality. Michael was a member of the “Florida Players Troupe” and performed an ensemble role in UF’s first attempt of “In the Heights” a Broadway musical focusing on the has lived of Hispanic immigrants raised in York City facing gentrification. This historical linkage is part of his own narrative as a Latino from New York as well. Michael actively seeks to develop these three dynamic sectors of Engineering, Social Justice, and Arts by honing the skills entangled with each.

Monique Sawyer was a non-traditional transfer student at Roanoke Chowan Community College, who aims to help people find their passion and keys to success through education. During her journey as a non-traditional student, she has learned the benefits of having an education and access to educational opportunities. It is her goal to help people find these opportunities and to help them pursue their passions through traditional or non-traditional education.

Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed graduated from UCLA with a degree in political science and has served as the Associate Director of the Iranian American Women Foundation. Her passions lie in social justice, human rights, and the law. She hopes to attend law school in fall 2016 to fulfill her aspirations of providing legal representation for under-served communities. Before her academic career at UCLA, Negeen held leadership positions at United Nations Association of Orange County, as Vice-President of Membership, and Network of Iranian Professionals of Orange County, being the youngest member of the Executive Board in the organization’s 29-year history. She was a writer for Fempowerment Journal, a collaborative blog discussing feminist issues. In 2013, she was nominated for the Star Award at the OC Global Women’s Conference and received an honorable mention. Upon attending UCLA, Negeen was highly involved in student government representing UCLA in statewide and nation-wide conferences and elected UCLA’s first ever Transfer Student Representative for the Undergraduate Student Association Council. Negeen represented over 28,000 undergraduate students, hired and managed 30+ staff members, and advocated for equitable institutional change. She also served as External Vice-President of the Iranian Student Group at UCLA. Negeen was an IAWF staff member, Chair of the Orange County National Iranian American Council (NIAC) Action team, and active member of the Southwest Asian, North Afrikan Coalition, a collective she helped form in 2014. She has also led conferences on education and international relations. Her work has been featured on Washington Post, Manoto TV, Mic, KIRN 670 radio, FEMsmagazine, ABC’s Nightline, BBC World Service’s day, and Al Jazeera America.

Nuno Pereira is a first generation Mexican-American, 2016 Fellow, and community activist. As a scholar, he was recognized as a 2015 Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholar and has researched the impacts of memory on the criminal justice system in John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In the community, Nuno was involved in the organization Make the Road NJ in which he traveled to advocate for immigrant and worker rights throughout the country. Through this service he has given testimony before bodies of elected officials and activists, in locations such as the State House in Trenton NJ and Washington D.C. Nuno also has served as president of Educate the Future, a grassroots movement he founded in the town of Hillside with the mission to close the education gap by providing free tutoring services to all families regardless of their social or economic background. The organization’s, and Nuno’s, ultimate goal is to provide every child with the same opportunity to reach their full potential through a high-quality education. He has further been recognized as a 2016 Vera Fellow and will begin working with a partnering agency with the Vera Institute of Justice this coming fall. As he continues to study Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Nuno aims to shape public policy and legislation through research and reform the criminal justice and education system to best serve the community. His future goals have included continuing his studies in the United Kingdoms, receiving his Ph.D. in Psychology, and running for elected office to inspire change in the community.

Nyree Hodges grew up in Britain, CT; an only child of her strong loving mother. Her strong suits are intellectual speaking, poetry, and activism. She is a 2016 graduate of The University of Bridgeport. During her undergraduate years, she contributed to writing for the University of Bridgeport’s school paper and became Creative Chair of a poetry club on campus called (S.L.A.M.) SOPHISTICATED LOVE OF THE ARTISTIC MIND. At UB, Nyree studied Literature and Civilization her year, and thereafter changed her major to Health Sciences. At the end of her undergraduate career, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Health Science – Community Health Education. In September 2015 Nyree was an intern for a Grassroots Environmental Justice Campaign in Bridgeport, CT called Healthy CT Alliance. There she was responsible for learning about environmental injustices, educating the community, public speaking, and grassroots organizing. Her primary areas of interest are preserving the natural eco-system, implementing independent food resources in communities, promoting equality amongst all classes and corporations, and devolving society constructs.

Oliver Telusma was born July 2nd, 1996 in Miami, Florida to Haitian parents. However, he is sure that his work lies not solely expanding opportunities for himself, but utilizing the resources at his disposal to create opportunities to disadvantaged communities. In his desire to combine elements of public service and civic engagement, charitable work and his love of public speaking and delivering spoken word pieces to create Progress (otelusma96.wix.com/progress), an entity dedicated to closing economic, educational and racial-based disparities. He also took up the mantle of campaign manager for Juliun Kinsey, a candidate for Alachua County School Board, who was committed to closing gaps in one of the most economically disparate areas in the state of Florida and the country (Gainesville). His desire to practice law and eventually enter public service in the future does not deter from his unwavering belief now in society’s potential to be and equitable for all people.

Omar Osvaldo Romandia was a student majoring in Economics at Arizona State University. He is the son of hard-working Mexican immigrants and proud to be the first in his family to attend college, soon to graduate with honors. Omar is an active member of his community, specifically serving underprivileged youth in their pursuits to attend college. Being a product of the public education system, he knows first-hand what changes are necessary to create competitive citizens of education. In response to Proposition 300 in Arizona that brought on unnecessary tuition hikes to hundreds of undocumented students, Omar was a member of the non-profit Manzana Foundation that helped bring affordable classes to students by establishing a satellite campus in the valley. These efforts helped keep over 300 students in college during complicated educational circumstances. Omar also developed a pilot program aimed to promote and foster STEM-ready youth in high school. By bridging the gap between technological readiness and classroom instruction, high school students can learn to enhance their problem-solving skills, yielding benefits in college and in life. After graduating, Omar hopes to pursue a Masters in Information Management and System to acquire the skills necessary to change how the public education system uses technology. His ultimate goal was to create an educational platform that would allow teachers and students to perform at their best

Raven Ealey is a social/cultural commentary writer, vlogger, poet and community organizer. She has been an active member of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), an activist organization operating with a Black queer feminist lens dedicated to securing freedom for all Black people through direct action, advocacy, education and leadership development. She has served as Project Coordinator for the traveling photo/video campaign entitled “Our Streets Our Bodies Our Voices.” The campaign aimed to spark discussion around policing in York City and its impact on Black Yorkers. She is passionate about combating gentrification and uplifting marginalized communities through vocalizing their narratives.

Reginald James Singletary II was a student at Baylor University from the great city of Houston, TX. Reginald majored in Economics and Marketing with a Pre-Law track and was a student leader on campus. Reginald has served as the president of the NAACP chapter at Baylor, the Political Action Delegate of the Coalition of Black Ambassadors, Co-Chair of the Planning Committee for the Big XII Conference on Black Student Government coming to Baylor in 2018, and a brother of the Tau Alpha Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Reginald‘s passion is leaving a positive impact everywhere he goes and with every move he makes.

Rema Alzer is an Arab American who’s rooting stem from the holy land of Palestine. Coming from a country whose land is occupied opened Rema’s eyes to a lot of corruption and violence in the world at a young age. This made her empathetic towards victims of war, racism, Islamophobia, and injustice. Thus driving her to want to bring about change in many ways in her community. Passionate about influencing the Muslim community and urging their voices to be heard, she has educated them on the importance of voting in the presidential elections. She has also set up fundraisers to help the refugees of Gaza and Syria and regularly gathers donations for the Islamic Relief Center. Rema wants to create a platform to be able to broadcast middle eastern worlds in a truthful light to avoid media biases

Rob Alexander graduated from Morehouse College, where he majored in African American Studies and DePaul University College of Law where he was a recipient of the Benjamin Hooks Distinguished Service Award and the SBA Community Service Chair. He spent several years as a professional cook, where he began to think seriously about food security issues. He worked with a group of friends to run a non-profit dedicated to teaching young people from his community about healthy food and urban agriculture.

Ry Douglas was a Fashion Business major with a double minor in Marketing and Black World Studies at Columbia College Chicago. She is passionate about social justice for all marginalized groups but is specifically interested in doing something about the lack of representation for these groups in all media, especially in the fashion industry. She hopes to use her art and platform in the industry to make changes to the systematic discrimination set in place.

Samantha Lehman is a graduate of Hampshire College, where she studied anthropology and Middle East studies. She has worked as an educator, organizer and advocate. Samantha is passionate about educational justice and economic security, especially for families. She has experience in curriculum and project planning, campaigning, teaching, community engagement and voter outreach. She is currently working on issues related to family economic security and early childhood education.

Sandra Viviana Arboleda Moncada is a psychologist and social worker from Colombia with a focus in organizational psychology and community development. She has researched and designed programs in Colombia to work with victims of violent displacement, including indigenous populations. She founded an intervention project for disadvantaged communities in Colombia whose success led to an official government-supported mental health program funded by government and private grants. She also conducted community outreach efforts in Colombia for victims of domestic violence to promote awareness of rights, legal remedies, and prevention measures. Sandra immigrated to the United States in 2009. Since then, she worked with attorneys to start an immigration law firm, provided clinical support to Latino immigrant youths, and designed programs to assist the Latino community in the Washington, DC metro area, as well as indigenous populations in Panama. She is currently earning her Masters degree in Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore and she is an active member of the Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO). Sandra will focus her career on providing adequate and culturally competent mental health care to underserved Latino immigrants in the United States.

Sebastian Nunez graduated Columbia College Chicago with a BA in General Theater with the hopes of attending grad school for Performance Studies or Chicanx/Latino Studies. After struggling with depression, he found himself in a cultural reawakening of sorts and rediscovered his roots and culture and sought to further decolonize and dive into his identity as a first generation queer chicanx of immigrant parents. An aspiring theater maker, he wishes to write, direct, and perform the stories of marginalized identities under a theater collective he is starting, 312Misfits; an intersectional, diverse theater collective of artists of all identities. He wants to be part of the movement that is seeking to diversify the American theater and bring broader representation of brown, black, queer, disabled, etc. bodies to the stage. He aims to use theater as a tool for social change and coping tool for the violence, trauma, mental illness, and social stigmas that many communities endure. Sebastian is also a Gates Millennium Scholar.

Shalesa Grey attended Winthrop University and studied business administration with a concentration in marketing. As a first-generation college student, she has served as Winthrop University’s NAACP Political Action Chair where she spearheaded initiatives to educate minorities about political issues and policies that affected them in within general and local elections. She has launched voter registration drives to register fellow students to vote on campus as well as events that covered topics such as mass incarceration, education achievement gap, and police brutality. She is passionate about social justice and voter education and hopes to use her marketing skills to create significant change within her community by motivating youth to take action.

Sohil Shah attended UNC Chapel Hill and hopes to pursue a career at the intersection of entrepreneurship and social good. Sohil has had experience running a college access organization that he co-founded, The College Essayist, and was appointed by A World at School as a Global Youth Ambassador. Sohil was also a leadership development consultant for the International Youth Council, an inaugural council member of the EarthEcho International Youth Leadership Council, and was an international development enthusiast. , Sohil continues his mission to expand education equality by planning to scale The College Essayist even further through an online platform and physical conference series. Sohil aspires to continue working to resolve equal access to higher education alongside pursuing activities in relationship to environmental activism.

Stephanie Gerspacher has attended SUNY Geneseo, studied sociology with a minor in women’s studies. She is a first-generation college student who grew up in a rural community outside of Buffalo, New York where her passion for reproductive justice and women’s rights began at an early age. She served as the president and women’s studies representative for her campus Planned Parenthood Generation Action student group. Stephanie was a public affairs intern at Planned Parenthood of Central and Western York where she engaged patients about volunteering and promoting healthy neighborhoods. For three years she has served as a rape crisis advocate for RESTORE Sexual Assault Services served five counties in Western York. During winter break of her year, she was recruited as a campaign fellow for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign to work in Iowa. She is passionate about bringing social justice to rural communities and ensuring access to reproductive healthcare in rural areas.

Summer Thompson was a Communications major with a minor in Business Administration from Abilene Christian University. She is passionate about cultural competency, sociology, and the social justice movement. On campus, she was involved with the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Black Student’s Association, and International Justice Mission. Eventually, she plans to partake in a position in the students’ association. Off campus, she served as Vice President for the Texas NAACP Youth and College Division. When people ask her how she’s doing in achieving her endeavors she always responds, “I’m doing me, but on a larger scale.

Suryaa Murali is from Fremont CA. As an ACE action Fellow for the 2015-16 Bay Area cohort, he has worked in coalition building, legislation, service, and event planning related to climate change. By doing work with ACE he was able to see that we have the capability to make social change happen to better our planet. The real issue today is people conforming to society’s so-called limitations and structure in the realm of politics, economics, and authority. People tend to make decisions that are not necessarily the best in regards to justice or society because of conforming. This world does not need economic, political, or psychological change to change for the better. It needs Moral change. He believes each one of us needs to make good moral decisions in order to stop the gridlock that is holding us back from achieving social justice in all aspects. To make change happen we must all come together with the one vision to save our planet for future generations. Suryaa hopes to build a network of like-minded people in order to achieve his goal of creating one vision based on moral values. Effective altruism is another one of his values, and it’s basically the philosophy that applies effective and evidence-based decision making. Through YP4 Suryaa took measures to make collective power, effective altruism, and moral decisions the norm of society.

Taylor Lamb was a student at the University of Virginia, studying English and Drama. She is most passionate about using art as a means to create change. This was something she has tried to do throughout her time at UVA. She has most notably done this by writing and acting in The Black Monologues, a student written/directed/and produced show about the black experience at UVA, and spending her time as social chair for Paul Robeson Players, a revolutionary Black Theatre organization. Taylor is most passionate about racial justice, women’s equality, and the intersection of these issues for black women. In addition to her artistic activities, Taylor was a small group leader for Women’s Leadership Development Program, a program designed to empower women to reach their leadership potential and teach them how to navigate the struggles they will face as a result of being women. She served as the secretary for Black Women’s Initiative, a small conversation group for black women to discuss experiences specific to them. She has interned for Iris Magazine through the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center, where she wrote articles pertaining to women’s issues. She has also been awarded the Miller Arts Scholarship, a program for exceptional artists to cultivate their artistic talent through interdisciplinary discussion and collaborative work. She plans to use the resources of this program to continue creating art which impacts social change. Taylor hopes to create and be a part of art ranging from novels to plays to TV shows and more that empower young black women, and other women of color, and help to assist in the liberation of her people.

Yetunde Obasade is a Nigerian-American and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. She has been a member of the Society of Women Engineers, an active mentor for ME2, her university’s’ Multicultural Engineering Mentorship Program, and served as the 2016 Public Relations Chair for the National Society of Black Engineers chapter at the University of Oklahoma. With a passion for sustainability and renewable energy, Yetunde plans on attending graduate school to obtain her Masters of Science in Sustainability and Design Systems. As a participant in her school’s Green Week, she advocated for the switch to renewable energy, as well as an increase in campus recycling. Yetunde is also extremely passionate about women’s’ rights and the continued advocacy for minority equality. She hopes to one day create a scholarship for underrepresented minority women who are pursuing degrees in the STEM field

Ysa Munoz was an undergraduate student at FIU. She has worked on her Political Science and Sociology dual degree, along with a certificate in Women and Gender’s Studies. Ysabella is a feminist activist who focuses her work and community service mostly on women’s rights issues. She has helped organize the first Feminist Summit in Florida, the SlutWalk, 1 in 3, and forums regarding gender issues and politics. Her main goal is to spread awareness and education in order to create a more respectful society.

Yulkendy Valdez attended Babson College and studied business management and entrepreneurship. She moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic at the age of 10, and ever since, she became more aware of the socio-economic inequalities that exist in today’s society. She was very active in leadership roles on campus from serving as Community Service Chair for both the Black Student Union and ALPFA (a Latino Business organization) to working directly with multicultural programs at her college to facilitate initiatives around diversity and social entrepreneurship. She is proud to be a Resolution Project Fellow as well as a recipient of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation-ESA LOFT Fellowship for her work on inclusive leadership and gender equality. She was admitted to the Public Policy Conference at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2013 and has spent her college journey traveling on immersive programs to Rwanda, Uruguay, Argentina, Russia, India, China, and most throughout Europe.

Zena Ali is an Egyptian-American. She is very passionate about minority-owned businesses growth within her community. Her dream is to work with Arab-owned businesses and analyze their progress. Her goal is to give these businesses the opportunity to branch out. She plans to attend North Carolina A&T for the fall semester and then UNC Charlotte for the spring semester with a major in international business. In the past, she has worked for two Arab-owned businesses, including her father’s. What she realized during this experience was that these businesses struggle in competition against those who are more privileged. Some of her achievements are the following: Treasurer of National Honor Society, Member of the National Technical Honor Society, Vice-president of Communities in Schools, and Secretary of Student Government at Northern Nash High School. Her parents brought the family to America to provide them with a better education and more opportunities. In the process of getting an education, Zena also learned how to have an open mind and a passion for others’ happiness. She says “The way to satisfaction is the freedom of choice and acceptance of one’s circumstance.” Because of this passion, she felt the need to Join Young People For because their main goal is to target hidden issues within communities. This was exactly where she feels she can make a change.

Flores-Abid is a first-generation, female college graduate from a working class family, Zuleima believes in the importance of helping people from all backgrounds allocate resources to have livable conditions to succeed in our society. As a former External Affairs Chair for Legal Education Association for Diversity (LEAD) and former mentor for Freedom4Youth, she learned that access to resources and opportunities is crucial, and makes the difference in individual’s future endeavors. Once, Zuleima graduated from UC Santa Barbara she returned to her hometown of Stockton, CA and took part in Motivation TV’s “Campaign For Change.” With a drive to bring about change, Zuleima helped to coordinate community events aimed at giving individuals an opportunity to share their story on stage. She also joined the National Alliance on Mental Illness in which she helped to run State programs and assisted affiliates in the state of California. To this day, Zuleima holds dearly in her heart the day her mother told her at the Tijuana border, “Tu Fuerte como un roble” which means “Stay Strong like an Oak Tree.” Those words have taught Zuleima that words are powerful and can change people’s perspectives towards life. That same message she plans to take to each individual she meets and hopes that those individuals pass that message on to others.

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Greek Life for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity will be a task force at Georgia Southern University aiming to (1) create an annual conference educating the community on the institutional and cultural barriers to Greek Life and Student Government for queer, trans, low-income students, and students of color and those at the intersections of those identities, and (2) create a campaign targeting Student Government and University administration in order to expand the non-discrimination clause for student organizations to include Greek Organizations, thus securing the right of trans and gender-nonconforming students to join Greek Organizations. GLIDE will work to collect educational material for the conferences as well as bring facilitators to engage the community in constructive discussion around issues of diversity, inclusion, and equity as it applies to Greek Organizations and Student Government recruitment and retention.

Impact Youth Services is a multi-year approach to providing services and mentoring programs for elementary, middle, and high school youth in the St. Clair County area. The program will form partnerships with local school districts, churches, and the juvenile court system. Impact’s goal is to increase the number of young people of color with mentors, increase resources for mentoring programs and expand mentoring programming and opportunities tailored to the needs and circumstances of young people throughout St. Clair County. Impact will focus on two types of mentoring. The first type of mentoring Impact will focus on is traditional mentoring and the second type of mentoring Impact is group mentoring.

In order to create spaces and opportunities for communities of color to equip themselves further to become emerging health and racial equity leaders in the South, this blueprint aims to – (1) create a Data Justice Hub where research projects focusing on the health disparities and inequities of LGBT* POC can be cultivated, and (2) create a coalition of racial and health equity emerging leaders who can be conduits and bridge-builders for organizations, institutions, and non-profits for social determinants of health. These leaders can be changemakers and continue to create solutions that can impact health in the long-term. With a multifaceted approach to influencing research, policy, and creating a coalition in the South, public health critical race theorists can emerge as champions for health and racial equity in the Southeastern United States.

Eastern Coachella Valley for CHANGE (ECV for CHANGE) aims to ensure that High School sophomores in the Coachella Valley Unified School District are meeting the necessary requirements they need to apply to CSUs, CCs & UC’s during their Senior year of High School. The ECV for CHANGE will serve as a 1-year mentorship program for CVUSD sophomores in order to ensure that they receive the necessary support they need to thrive in high school and higher education. The three models of ECV for CHANGE are higher education, leadership development, and community service. The mentorship will pair a current CVUSD sophomore with a current college student or college graduate who was a former CVUSD student or is a part of the Coachella Valley.

ELIMINHATE is a website set out to create a nationwide network that will enable people to educate themselves about extremist, hate groups menacing the country. ELIMINHATE sets out to provide tools for communities at risk to be aware of the hate that may be in their geographical vicinity and engage in campaigns and policies aimed at ending the propagation of hate in this country. A user of the website will be able to stay updated on current events concerning hate crimes, navigate where certain groups are localized, get involved in events happening near them, understand the history of the most prominent groups, and know what policies exist as well as what legislation is needed in the future to protect those whose rights are being infringed upon by these hate groups.

ARW aims to hold monthly anti-racist workshops for white and white passing folks in an effort to educate, engage, and mobilize more white people to commit to anti-racist work. Workshops will offer ways for white folks to work toward dismantling institutional racism and white supremacist culture.

People Over Poverty is a direct service educational organization seeking to teach, empower, and educate adults and teenagers of low socioeconomic status/low-income in New York City on how to maneuver capitalism in America through educational seminars. Through these seminars, participants will be examining how the system of capitalism is applied and manifested in their daily lives, and how to tangibly build social and cultural capital. In America, these forms of capital (social and cultural) are used as tools to perpetuate economic stagnation, gaps in achievement, and poverty in various communities. P.O.P seeks to address the underlying systemic causation of poverty with the goal of enhancing socioeconomic mobility and self-advocacy. Through these seminars, we will track other socioeconomic metrics such as graduation rates, literacy rates, economic acumen, content comprehension, content analysis, and other metrics to measure our success.

The Census 2020 Campaign in the Inland Empire (hereinafter referred to as “The Campaign”) will work for a full and accurate count of all Latinos in Riverside and San Bernardino counties for Census 2020. The Campaign will deploy a two-year strategy that includes engaging elected officials at the city, state, and county levels, non-profit and community-based organization executives, and other civil servant and faith leaders in the Inland region. Together, we will work to foster relationships and recruit partners, form a bi-county and regional Complete Count Committee, host “train-the-trainer” workshops, organize larger public-facing forums and convenings, establish community assistance centers, and disseminate much-needed collateral to do critical outreach and education. This will be done with a regional twist in a way that best resonates with the Latino community.

The Activating Sisters Strengths and Elevating Their Stories (A.S.S.E.T.S.) Conference is an annual gathering of Native American, female-identifying scholars attending the University of Wisconsin. The A.S.S.E.T.S. Conference is new in existence and emerges to provide peer support for women of Native American descent currently pursuing undergraduate degrees. The A.S.S.E.T.S. Conference establishes a physical space for Native American women to build community during a four day series of workshops focused on strengthening academic and spiritual wellbeing. A.S.S.E.T.S. will follow traditional indigenous values to create healthy exchanges of women’s stories pertaining to the intersections of academia, culture, and spirituality. A.S.S.E.T.S. will continue to honor and advance the contributions of Native women from local lands by highlighting previous or currently active Native American female leadership in education.

Recon: Place for reconnection and reconciliation is a multi-year citywide initiative that aims to create spaces of intentional, holistic, and methodical healing spaces for sexual assault/abuse survivors within the churches in the (Black) urban core of Kansas City, Missouri. Amidst facilitating healing, this organization will mobilize local churches around legislation to shrink KCPD rape kit backlogs and encourage/protect sexual assault reports. This blueprint will establish sexual crime as an issue, expose victim stigmatization, and explain the role of churches in the solution of these issues.

The Diversity and Inclusion Initiative will work towards achieving educational justice by creating more diverse and inclusive resources for under-represented students at the St. John’s University Staten Island campus. This will take place by connecting and working with faculty members, students, and student-led organizations to input their voices and opinions and provide additional outside resources for their academic studies. The resource Elvira wants to create is an on-campus inclusivity center for students. This center will provide a safe, inclusive, and affirming space for students, and guests. Elvira will focus on pressuring St. John’s University administrators to establish resources for under-represented students, setting meetings with St. John’s University Faculty members to hear perspective students’ experiences on diversity and inclusion, and holding St. John’s University accountable to include representation from Staten Island in their plans/discussions.

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Juvenile Justice System – A Shift Towards Positive Accountability aims to influence the decision-making of judges in the juvenile justice system in Madison, Wisconsin when handing out verdicts to juvenile delinquents. The aim of this blueprint is to highlight and provide support in favor of a comprehensive juvenile justice system that turns its direction to holding delinquents accountable in a positive manner. This will be accomplished by creating a direct pipeline program with the juvenile courts and community organizations. By creating this pipeline, it will allow judges to best utilize alternative sentencing. This blueprint advocates for judges to court-order youthful offenders to complete community service instead of formally bringing them into the justice system through detention centers or house arrests. This form of accountability allows for the juvenile delinquent ‘pay’ for their crimes and still benefit the entire community.

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Focusing specifically on U.S census data collection, this blueprint outlines a plan of action to dismantle prison gerrymandering in New York State. It rejects districting schemes that count inmates as residents of the district where they are incarcerated instead of their home districts and challenges the idea of prison as a home. Under the current model, inmates for whom there is no information on record are essentially discarded, excluded from the count altogether. The goal of this blueprint is to restore political power to disenfranchised communities. The solution will require a combination of inter-agency collaboration as well as Census reform for 2020 and beyond. This blueprint proposes a fairer method for dealing with inmates with missing pre-incarceration information and advocates for a better method of data collection and sharing information across institutions.

In the city of Wichita, KS, the effects of colonization and capitalism manifest in low retention rates of people of color within the community, negligence of mental health care for individuals of all ages, and a stagnant and failing economy in the city. Together, these effects foster a poor living, learning, and working environment for marginalized communities and this consequently encourages young people of color to leave the community and encourages negligence of communities of color from local leaders. The Asian American Community Center is a resource facility in Wichita that aims to engage, educate, and empower the Asian American community through rigorous programming, interactive workshops, and intensive professional development training. Though the Center focuses on the historically marginalized Asian community in Wichita, all individuals are welcome and are encouraged to utilize the services that the Center has to offer.

Gettin’ Free is an organization whose vision is a world in which everyone is truly free. The mission is to provide schools, organizations and community foundations with trainings/workshops that challenge racial bias, promote diversity, equity and inclusion . We aim to partner with schools, students, teachers and organizations to provide them with restorative justice frameworks, as well as culturally responsive trainings.

This two-phase Blueprint is focused on the research, development, dissemination, and implementation of a workshop curriculum centered around mental health and wellness for high school to college-aged youth of color. This curriculum, M(y)WellMap (My Mental Wellness Map), is seeking to close information gaps among minority youth concerning mental health, mental illness, and best practices for long-term wellness. M(y)WellMap is a form of proactive education to inform those genetically predisposed to mental illness and provide educational tools and strategies for all young people to live healthy, and mentally productive adult lives. M(y)WellMap, will be employed by educational institutions and other aligned non-profit organizations, as both a current landscape briefing and framework for seminar-style workshops. The curriculum will be available on an online platform, and leverage other forms of technology, such as phone applications, to provide greater access to the target demographic.

Survived and Punished NY is the New York affiliate of a national organizing initiative formed by a coalition of feminist anti-prison and anti-gender based violence advocates to support criminalized survivors and abolish gendered violence, policing, prisons, immigration detention, and deportations. Our work in New York is focusing in on the #FreeThemAll project, where we demand that Governor Andrew Cuomo free all criminalized survivors of gendered violence in NY prisons. For the purpose of this Blueprint, Ericka will focus on building a base of advocates and activists to implement action across all levels that put pressure on the Governor, including advocacy from key figures close to the issue, actions and escalation tactics, and building public support and pressure both digitally and with postcard writing. We will also use electoral power to build pressure.

LouiEvolve Hip Hop and Arts Festival is an annual festival that celebrates the future of hip hop by highlighting Louisville artists who push society forward through this revolutionary art. Louievolve will focus on providing resources to amplify Louisville’s art community through education and celebration.

This project aims to combat the accessibility barriers that face high-achieving low-income and minority students’ when completing the college application process. These systemic barriers leave students lacking the strategic, emotional, and financial support when applying to college, impeding many bright students from realizing their full potential. In order to address this achievement gap, this proposal introduces a project aimed at creating a comprehensive curriculum tailored to the specific barriers that first-gen low income (FLI) students may face during the college admissions process. They will be given valuable advice concerning what schools are looking for, financial aid applications, and essay ideation and revision.

Hey, You MATTER! is a mental health toolkit/workbook for school aged children at the Athens Area Homeless Shelter that also have marginalized. This will highlight the different venues of mental health care that we can provide to children in transition, and it is healing trauma through storytelling.

Seeding Sanctuary Project is a Bronx-based initiative for young womxn of color to explore, reclaim, affirm, and celebrate themselves, their power, and their mental health through their relationships to land and food. Young womxn of color (YWoC) from The Bronx face various challenges and oppressions that threaten their safety, wellness, dreams, and lives. YWoC are in dire need of spaces to restore and care for themselves, to (re)imagine a world beyond their realities, and to be able to locate tangible tools and strategies that allow us to realize these visions in real-time. SSP is addressing the issues of racial justice and gender parity. The successful implementation of SSP would mean participants will become skilled at selecting and using culturally resonant plants and herbs, planting and stewarding the land, and making connections between land and liberation.

Queer Interfaith Coalition of Athens is a coalition of faith-based organizations in the Athens community that are committed to providing a safe and affirming interfaith space for the LGBTQ community, especially for those who identify as people of color. This coalition is especially committed to serving LGBTQ people of all faith identities and multi-faith identities. QICA will use a coalition-building and a council-led leadership model to create monthly gatherings and larger interfaith services focused on the spiritual needs of LGBTQ people. QICA is also interested in helping to structure public policy and legislation that will ban conversion or reparative therapy for children under 18 years of age in Athens, Georgia. We feel that these therapies are destructive to LGBTQ people & their mental health and are committed to doing anything to stop such therapies.

Queens Rising is a racial justice-based arts festival that seeks to uplift the diversity of peoples, cultures and stories in Queens. This community-centered festival will celebrate Queens as the most ethnically diverse area in the world and provide resources on racial justice to NYC’s suburban communities.

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Combiz is Deloitte’s Global Emerging Technology and Innovation Leader. He is a senior executive with 15 years’ experience, serving as a national security lawyer, economic and foreign policy advisor, regulator, and technologist at the Dept. of State, Treasury, The Obama-Biden White House and Senate. He served on the OECD, Congressional Black Caucus Energy Braintrust chaired by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and the Commerce Secretary’s Trade Finance Advisory Council. He has led initiatives to address climate change, strengthen cybersecurity, combat threats to democracy, expand diversity and inclusion, and accelerate economic growth, while playing a key role in helping organizations recover during the pandemic. Born in Texas, the son of Middle Eastern immigrants, he is a graduate of UCLA, AUB, and Georgetown Law. He is the recipient of the 2020 Federal 100 Award, recognizing top 100 executives who’ve made the greatest impact in government. He speaks Persian, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Arabic, and Spanish.

Fatima Abdullah was a student at North Carolina State University, where she pursued a double major in Art Studies and International Studies. Fatima hopes to use her opportunities towards building dialogue through art working to bring about social change. Growing up in a culturally diverse country- the United Arab Emirates – along with being half Latina and Arab herself, encouraged an appreciation of cultural diversity, while her mother’s status as a widow opened her eyes to the unique struggles lower-income women face as breadwinners in a male dominated world. All of these factors have incentivized her to find ways to address the gender and income-based disparities in my community.

Pavitra attended the University of Michigan and spent her time as a community organizer in the greater Ann Arbor area. Her passion lies in voter engagement and creating a more inclusive and representative political process. Specifically, she works with minority women and engages them unto the electoral system. Her experience as an organizer instilled in her the value of personal stories and relationship building and these are skills she plans to use in her future.

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Zakiya was a student at Oberlin College. They were one of seven board members for the Edmonia Lewis Center (ELC) for Women and Trans*. Their work there included engaging in creative programming to transform intersecting systems of oppression, including, but not limited to, racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, xenophobia, transphobia, classism, etc. Zakiya also volunteered through America Counts (math-focused tutoring) at the Boys and Girls Clubs, which is an after-school center that provided safety, food, and education to low-income and of color youth in grades k-8th.

Priscilla Acosta is a first generation college student. She attended Northern Arizona University. Her involvement was in promoting civic engagement in lower socioeconomic communities. Her involvement in politics ranged from canvassing to organizing rallies and forums. She hopes that future policy makers are more diverse and are more representative of the United States.

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YP4 Fellows at Florida A&M University and Florida State University partnered to work on issues of higher education in the state of Florida for their Blueprints for Social Justice. At the time the state was facing the implementation of a Block Tuition bill, which would implement significant budget cuts and could force graduation from state universities to occur within four years, thereby preventing students from pursuing work opportunities or internships during their studies. The Florida YP4 Fellows saw this as a crippling blow to public higher education in their state and mobilized to prevent the passage of this legislation. They kicked off their action plan with a Young People For training March 18-19th, 2005 to educate their community about and heighten awareness surrounding this proposed bill. Through trainings on advocacy techniques, Public education issues, the supreme court, and messaging tactics, the YP4 Fellows attempted to show how the Florida legislature has unfairly targeted higher education with disproportionate budget cuts and how these cuts may limit the accessibility of higher education in the state. The students coordinated with local media and partnered with progressive organizations on campus to garner support for their cause and to mobilize students to be a part of their efforts.

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Transblazer is a multi-year project that aims to make medical knowledge about the transitioning process and beyond easier to access to low income transgender and gender-variant people of color. Transblazer will work towards achieving this goal by creating a workshop for low income transgender and gender-variant people of color to learn about the process of transitioning. It will culminate in an app that includes medical information about transgender, intersex, questioning, and non-binary individuals. For the purpose of this Blueprint for Social Justice, Transblazer will focus on the strategic distribution of patient educational materials, the development of a healthcare provider training, and a phone application to make imperative data more accessible to transgender and gender-variant people of color along with allied organizations that want to improve their support to this demographic.

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Kristina Agbebiyi is a writer, organizer, and graduate student currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Most of their organizing and writing focuses on feminism, reproductive justice, racial justice, and LGBTQ rights.
Kristina participated in YP4 as a fellow in 2014, and returned in 2016 as a trainer and an alumni FemMentor. Within their unpaid organizing work, they primarily worked on racial justice issues in Atlanta through a group called RiseUp, and served as the president of Kennesaw State University’s Intersectional Feminist group, YESBody.
Through these groups, Kristina participated in direct actions and campaigns dedicated to fighting white supremacy, police brutality, sexism, and xenophobia.
Kristina has also served as the Human Services intern for the Kennesaw State Academy for Inclusive Learning, an academy for adults with intellectual disabilities where they learn social, educational and work skills.
In 2017, Kristina served as the Advocacy Intern for Lutheran Services of Georgia in their Refugee Services division. Kristina also served on the advisory board for Campus Pride, an LGBTQ organization in 2016.
For paid organizing work, Kristina served as the Georgia Field Organizer for GetEqual, a radical LGBTQ group, and also as a reproductive justice blogger for Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity. They are currently serving as an Organizing Fellow with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan.
Kristina graduated with a degree in Human Services: Nonprofit Administration from Kennesaw State University in 2017, where they also received the Outstanding Graduate Award for their contributions to social justice movements, and a passion for serving others.
In the fall, Kristina will continue their studies at the University of Michigan, where they will earn their Masters in Social Work with a concentration in Social Policy and Evaluation in Community Systems. Kristina is Black, Queer, Nonbinary, and only uses they/them pronouns.

YP4 Fellows at Florida A&M University and Florida State University partnered to work on issues of higher education in the state of Florida for their Blueprints for Social Justice. At the time the state was facing the implementation of a Block Tuition bill, which would implement significant budget cuts and could force graduation from state universities to occur within four years, thereby preventing students from pursuing work opportunities or internships during their studies. The Florida YP4 Fellows saw this as a crippling blow to public higher education in their state and mobilized to prevent the passage of this legislation. They kicked off their action plan with a Young People For training March 18-19th, 2005 to educate their community about and heighten awareness surrounding this proposed bill. Through trainings on advocacy techniques, Public education issues, the supreme court, and messaging tactics, the YP4 Fellows attempted to show how the Florida legislature has unfairly targeted higher education with disproportionate budget cuts and how these cuts may limit the accessibility of higher education in the state. The students coordinated with local media and partnered with progressive organizations on campus to garner support for their cause and to mobilize students to be a part of their efforts.

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Farhan Ahmad was a joint B.S. /M.D. candidate at The University of Texas at San Antonio with interests in public health, policy, and neuroethics. He was the co-founder of VideoMed, a project dedicated to providing free mental health care to the homeless, which is featured on Xconomy, Fox, and NPR affiliates. Farhan has also led his work on Alzheimer’s disease at the United Nations General Assembly and collaborated with NGOs to develop student-led global health projects in Peru.

BLUEPRINT: Ensuring student success in Houston. The University of Houston YP4 Fellows worked to increase the number of students who graduate from Yates High School and are able to advance on to college in order to decrease the poverty and unemployment surrounding UH. The YP4 Fellows formed an after school program featuring tutoring hours, college enrichment activities, and speakers to motivate students in their quest to graduate high school. The Fellows collaborated with: the UH Metropolitan Volunteer Program to find tutors, the UH Scholars Enrichment Program to hold college enrichment activities, and various education agencies in the Houston area to find motivational speakers for the students. The Fellows also held a FAFSA workshop once a month for students with questions regarding the application.

BLUEPRINT: Climate Change Compact at Stanford University. Stanford University YP4 Fellows worked with Campus Climate Challenge to call for a strong University commitment to the challenge of climate change, and to catalyze the institution-wide changes that will fulfill those commitments. They worked to push Stanford to become a principal signatory to the Campus Climate Change Compact by the end of the 2006 academic year, put the plan into effect by the 2007, and made measurable strides in implementation of on-campus renewable energy generation by the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year.

BLUEPRINT: Ensuring student success in Houston. The University of Houston YP4 Fellows worked to increase the number of students who graduate from Yates High School and are able to advance on to college in order to decrease the poverty and unemployment surrounding UH. The YP4 Fellows formed an after school program featuring tutoring hours, college enrichment activities, and speakers to motivate students in their quest to graduate high school. The Fellows collaborated with: the UH Metropolitan Volunteer Program to find tutors, the UH Scholars Enrichment Program to hold college enrichment activities, and various education agencies in the Houston area to find motivational speakers for the students. The Fellows also held a FAFSA workshop once a month for students with questions regarding the application.

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Sun Devils Vote is an initiative dedicated to increasing civic participation at Arizona State University. Through Sun Devils Vote, a focused effort will be made to register students to vote and civic engagement curriculum will be implemented in ASU 101 courses, which all students are required to take.

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The Cornell University YP4 Fellows worked to cultivate a Progressive Think Tank on their campus. In an effort to build this think tank, they established the Progressive Student Union. Following the YP4 National Summit, these Fellows mobilized immediately to hold a progressive student fair on campus, which attracted over 100 students and allowed all the progressive organizations on campus to have tables and distribute their literature and information on their actions to members of the student body. They also worked to establish an email listserv for progressively minded students on campus to be connected through one channel. The Fellows planned to use their budding network of progressive activism on campus to stand behind them as they produce policy papers and strategies to coordinate the movement on campus. Their first creative effort involved the publication of a Guide to Getting Active, which they distributed widely on campus.

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Afsana Akter is a youth climate activist. She has worked with the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) and Global Kids. She was born in Bangladesh and moved to Brooklyn when she was ten years old. She is a graduate of Brooklyn School for the Collaborative Studies and attended Barnard College in New York City.

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Youth 4 Youth is a leadership development program tailored to youth between the ages of 13 and 18 in the DC community. Youth 4 Youth aims to develop early alliances and coalitions through immersive experiences, education and seminars and resources to become agents of change in their communities and abroad.

Tehani’s Blueprint seeks to address the unmet mental health needs of students and the lack of alternative options available on campus. Last year the university had five suicides on campus, which is extremely high and shows that the university needs to look at different options of getting students to cope with the various stressors that come along with college. Tehani recognizes the stigma around seeking mental health services that often keep students from pursuing help, and she is working to bridge some of these gaps between students and resources so that students secure the support they need to lead healthy, productive academic and personal lives.

Fatimeh is a very active young person that has always been involved in what was going on in the world. She started becoming a speaker for important topics such as Justice in Palestine when she was 12 years old. She is going to rallies, marches, and events all her life dealing with capitalism, socialism and racism. Fatimeh Al-Sayed held leadership positions most of her years in high school and looks forward to sharing what she has learned with her communities.

Kassim was an anthropology major and economics minor at Davidson College. He is interested in social justice issues and has worked toward promoting racial equity at both Davidson and beyond. He is especially concerned with the role the education system plays in maintaining a racial and social caste system in America. As a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., he promotes brotherhood and academic excellence while providing service and advocacy for his communities. He looks forward to learning coalition building strategies with YP4 so that he can better bring different groups of people together to achieve a common goal of fighting racial injustice.

Melissa Alba was a full-time student at Loyola University New Orleans. Throughout her high school career, she participated in many community events that helped out the immigrant community of New Orleans such as free legal clinics and health fairs. Melissa volunteered for several nonprofit organizations such as Puentes New Orleans and VAYLA. She hopes to further her community involvement by starting her own campaign that would help undocumented immigrants and other members of the Latino population in New Orleans understand their rights.

Kyle attended Brown University where he studied sociology and gender & sexuality studies. There, he was the digital communications coordinator for the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center and student blog editor of Bluestockings Magazine, where his writing centered on the intersection of LGBTQ+ and feminist issues. At Brown, he was also the founder of GSASS, a student organization dedicated to working in solidarity with LGBTQ+ youth in Providence. Central to his progressive work is a commitment to exploring the power of digital organizing and activism to forge community, fundraise, shape opinions, and ultimately drive social change forward.

Andy’s Blueprint is focused on creating a Corporate Accountability toolkit that can be used by students at campuses across the country. The toolkit highlights the tie between corporate accountability and money in politics, and it teaches concrete skills that can help anyone run a divestment campaign on their campus. He hopes that this toolkit can bring awareness to the importance of holding universities accountable on where they hold their investments, pension funds and endowments.

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Christian envisions a world in which all people have access to healthy foods, regardless of gender, race, class, ability, age, and sexuality. To that end, he is building a network of people active in the seed saving and urban agricultural movement: urban farmers, environmental activists, food activists, and educators. This network will work collectively to create workshops and resources for community members to learn about farming/gardening, seed saving, and environmental justice. Finally, their work will culminate in an annual Seed Swap, an event at which community members can learn about urban gardening and get seeds to start their own gardens.

Lela Ali was a 2014 YP4 alum and a graduate of North Carolina State University where she majored in International Political Science and minored in Middle East studies. She is a proud Egyptian immigrant that was raised in Rocky Mount, NC. Lela has interned with Common Cause NC where she worked with staff on grassroots organizing efforts, researched and wrote policy papers, and outreached to members of the North Carolina Legislature. She also worked with Ignite NC where she recruited students from all across North Carolina to train to be poll monitors for local, state, and presidential elections. Lela has worked in the bill drafting department at the North Carolina General Assembly.

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Irving Allen has been a community organizer at the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro and Triad Coordinator for Ignite NC. He has worked to build community and youth coalitions both in Greensboro and throughout the state of North Carolina. He has also worked to train North Carolina’s next generation of activists as the Fellowship Coordinator of Ignite NC. Irving played an intricate role in organizing initiatives such as the Citizens Review Board, addressing police accountability in Greensboro, as well as the Teens Downtown Youth program. Irving has also launched GSO Voting Voices, an organization aimed at providing the greater Greensboro community with social justice and civic engagement information. Irving also served as the Communications Chair for the Greensboro NAACP chapter, National Council member for the Fellowship Of Reconciliation, Member of the Freedom Side Network, appointed to the Youth Advisory Board for the city of Greensboro, and was the Youth Director of Shiloh Baptist Church, Youth and Student Coalition for Police Accountability (Y.S.C.P.A.), Guilford Votes, and sat on the planning committees for Piedmont Together and The Wild Goose Festival.

Abolish at College: Abolition Politics and Restorative Alternatives to Oppressive Systems is a pilot program designed to bring abolition politics to college campuses and young people. Though most slavery “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” was legally abolished in 1865, abolition politics nonetheless developed as the U.S. maintained slavery through more covert means, and maintained the subjugation of Black bodies through state-sanctioned racial terrorism and systemic discrimination. Through the enforcing of oppressive structures that target Black bodies, the U.S. government carried on the legacy of slavery and succeeded in denying any sort of justice to those harmed by slavery and its remnants. Modern-day abolition politics is an anti-capitalist movement that demands racial justice through the abolition of modernized slavery and systemic racial oppression.

Jordan’s Blueprint addresses the lack of knowledge and awareness when it comes to reproductive justice and issues in the state of Arizona, as well as the oppressive laws and policies regarding womyn’s rights in the state. She envisions a community empowerment program for womyn and all genders, where dialogue about gender, sex and preferred pronouns is the norm. She hopes that information and resources will be easily available to womyn students regarding their reproductive justice and rights as womyn, and she envisions increased accessibility to basic female health needs and comprehensive sexual education for all youth. Guided by the values of equity, equality and empowerment, her blueprint addresses the constant slut-shaming on campus, lack of awareness and accessibility to reproductive and female health in Tucson, and the need for tolerance and inclusive dialogue on campus, as well as the lack of comprehensive sex-education in the state of Arizona.

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BLUEPRINT: Reclaiming the Black Cultural Center Library at Bryn Mawr. The Black Cultural Center Library in the Bryn Mawr community was in need of repair, funding, and programming. YP4 Fellows at Bryn Mawr worked through their Blueprints for Social Justice and Sisterhood to reclaim the library as an institution that is able to serve the student community. They did so by building the library’s collection, by developing a space, structure and staff for discussions around Black culture and Black history, and through forging connections with local service-learning organizations like Books Through Bars.

The Cornell University YP4 Fellows worked to cultivate a Progressive Think Tank on their campus. In an effort to build this think tank, they established the Progressive Student Union. Following the YP4 National Summit, these Fellows mobilized immediately to hold a progressive student fair on campus, which attracted over 100 students and allowed all the progressive organizations on campus to have tables and distribute their literature and information on their actions to members of the student body. They also worked to establish an email listserv for progressively minded students on campus to be connected through one channel. The Fellows planned to use their budding network of progressive activism on campus to stand behind them as they produce policy papers and strategies to coordinate the movement on campus. Their first creative effort involved the publication of a Guide to Getting Active, which they distributed widely on campus.

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Miyra worked to challenge the commonly racist and classist paradigms that exist within the U.S.-Latin American relationships. Through her Blueprint, she shed light on issues that exist not only in the Latin American communities lying beyond the borders of the U.S., but also in the Latin American communities that exist within her local Cleveland, OH community.

Selma is an activist dedicated to creating and pulling strength and compassion from her family’s history and her personal experiences as a second-generation immigrant. As a strong advocate for racial diversity and multiculturalism, she is dedicated to empowering youth of color to make change on their campuses and in their communities. Extending her work in the state and throughout the country, Selma sat on the Board of Directors for United Council of University of Wisconsin Students and served as Chair of the National People of Color Student Coalition for the United States Student Association.

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Family of Scholars is a program that aims to support self-identified independent students on college campuses throughout their entire academic journey. Family of Scholars will focus on applying pressure at Duke University to launch a university-run program that aids this group of underserved students.

The initiative to bring Restorative Justice practice to the UMass Amherst campus is a multi-year, campus-wide campaign. The goal of the campaign is to establish a sustainable restorative justice program that is funded by the University and that has ties to the local courts. The process to establish this program will begin with mass educational awareness about restorative justice provided to the campus community and restorative justice pilot programs in Residential Life, Registered Student Organizations, Greek Life, Athletics, Student Government Association, and agencies that operate from the Student Government Association.

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Love Anani created a leadership retreat to ensure student leaders of color would have the skills, resources, and tools available to continue affecting positive social change on campus. With this vision, Love developed the Cultural Club Leadership Training Blueprint to provide day-long leadership training for students involved in Carleton College’s Office of Intercultural Life and Cultural Student Groups. It provided visioning workshops, skills training, and networking opportunities to leaders from over 15 student groups, all of whom convened around the opportunity to forge connections and foster coalition building across the campus and within the community. Administrators and advisors also attended to educate students on the school’s avenues of power, access, and resource allocation, thus increasing access to campus resources for students.

Uplifting the Student Disability Resource Center at UC Riverside is focused on addressing systemic ableism within UC Riverside. Many students with disabilities on campus are unaware of the services the center provides and feel intimidated to receive accommodations from the Student Disability Resource Center. The goal of the blueprint is to start the wheels for the upcoming years with the systemic and grass-roots changes that will happen in the Student Disability Resource Center and will be student lead. The plan is to work with multiple departments on campus in order to make systemic changes with the Student Disability Resource Center to become a more welcoming and brave space. Goals are to create a space within the Student Disability Resource Center for students with disabilities to build community and organize, create relationships with the ethnic and gender programs on campus, and establish an internship program within the Student Disability Resource Center.

Jack was a student at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, who studied health administration & policy and public health. With a strong interest in health policy and community development, Jack is passionate about eradicating unjust health disparities, building safe and welcoming communities, and ensuring all individuals, regardless of identity, had the ability to live happy and healthy lives. Jack has gained valuable experiences through advocacy efforts and employment with local public health non-profit organizations.

For her Blueprint project, Karena has set up a community support group for children with incarcerated family members. By partnering with the counseling center on campus at DePaul, she goes into schools where DePaul has an established presence. She works with the children who benefit most from her program and helps to empower and support them so they know they are not alone. She also provides them with additional resources they might need.

The Rights of Residents Campaign is a community-based multi-year initiative designed to train and mobilize residents fighting against residential displacement due to exclusionary planning methods imposed by elected officials. This campaign aims to influence the preservation of affordable housing policy, equitable zoning laws, and residential safety codes that govern community development and uplift the role of residential members in the planning stages of new infrastructure. The campaign will conduct a social survey of at-risk and targeted redevelopment areas to reveal intentional government disinvestment that violates the DC Fair Housing Act. The Rights of Residents Campaign will also aim to improve residential attitude towards community involvement, attendance of community meetings to address neighborhood issues, and individual and community efficacy in voting for local leadership by educating them on their rights and the avenues they are able to use to confront injustice

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Eddie has worked towards a degree in Industrial Design and an Associate’€™s Degree in Carpentry. In his organizing, he enjoys mixing visual arts with social media networked. He believes tolerance is the first step towards real change and equality.

BLUEPRINT: Supporting DACA Student’s Pursuit of Higher Education. Eddie’s Blueprint is helping increase access to in-state tuition fees for economically contributing immigrants, especially Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, in the state of New Mexico. Allowing DACA recipients to achieve a higher education will increase revenue and strengthen the overall economic growth and graduation rate of New Mexico.

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BLUEPRINT: Community Building among Youth Organizations in San Francisco. Each of the CCSF Fellows has a background in community based youth work. They all recognized that while there were many different groups organizing youth around San Francisco, there was no sense of unity in purpose or movement building amongst the groups. They also felt that there was a lack of opportunity in the organizing world once somebody stopped being a youth. The CCSF Fellows sought to bring the different groups together to learn from each other and develop some common goals. Arjuna, Gustavo and Sammie therefore engaged in a series of train the trainer events to support ongoing community youth outreach, and held community events for local youth, all with the aim of forging a common agenda.

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ReGENERATION is focused on regenerating the food system and the community in Pomona, CA. The project aims to connect the local community to the land they inhabit through agriculture and to shift the food system to a hyperlocal system of food grown by and for the local community.

London was a student majoring in international studies at Spelman College. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, London loves to travel. She participated in various organizations to maintain her devotion to human rights, the elimination of domestic violence, and sex-trafficking reform. London hopes that participating in YP4 will allow her to expand her horizons, build relationships with like-minded peers, and further engage herself in service.

Pomona College Fellows worked with their campus administration to develop a timeline for achieving carbon neutrality. They established an academic-activist entity that gave students loans to do individual research projects and awareness-raising events on sustainability.

Ashley Arp and Chris Duarte, 2008 YP4 Fellows at NAU – Flagstaff, worked to create a more inclusive and diverse campus and minimize the risks of discrimination and hate crimes. They did so by implementing an education program surrounding Diversity and Allyship on campus. The program required administration, staff, professors and students receive a wide array of educational resources relating to diversity, especially LGBT issues, and made workbooks and other resources available to any individual on campus. They created a team that would educate the community through campus-wide forums, speeches, and workshops. They also worked to have NAU implement an anti-discrimination policy that includes Gender Identity and Expression.

Hugo is the Co-Founder of Un Pueblo Unido, a group that focuses on education and increasing the involvement of parents in their students’ lives. Un Pueblo Unido collaborated with the PUHSD’s employee association and the Arizona’s Educators Association (AEA) to organize and present to communities about the opportunities for immigrant families. Hugo presented and organized events to help those eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals’ Work Permit, along with the guidelines for the possible Work Permit for Parents. He pursued his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Information Systems, which he implemented into his non-profit and his job.

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The South Asian Empowerment Coalition (SAEC) is an initiative that aims to provide young South Asian women in New Jersey with the tools, resources, and knowledge necessary for their financial independence. This program was born out of a necessity for women of South Asian descent to take ownership of their personal well-being as well as their social and economic outcomes. The program will (1) host a 10-week series of educational workshops designed to help women manage their personal expenses and additional one-on-one financial counseling to build their own financial plans, and (2) foster community among South Asian women in New Jersey who can help each other navigate financial systems and thrive both in and outside of the community. The long-term goal of this program is to build a lifelong network and skill set for these women to regularly tap into.

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Black to the Roots is a social media-based campaign/curriculum that aims to primarily educate those of the African diaspora, and others, about the rich history of what Black people have done in the past. The primary platform will be a podcast with information dissemination and spaces to talk on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

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Noticing a lack of youth engagement in her native Hopi community, Tiffany saw the need to reach out to these youth through various community development and organizing efforts. Tiffany was driven to improve the academic success, involvement, and traditional knowledge of the youth in her community. Her Blueprint worked to create a council from which students voices may be heard. This council mentored students in civic engagement, arts, sports, media, technology, cultural heritage and tribal politics.

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Kevin Baisden has been an ambitious honors student versed in scholarship, leadership, and activism. He was active in the Honors community at the Northern Virginia Community College as an Honors Program member in good standing. Mr. Baisden was also the President and founding member of the Honors Club and also was employed in the Dean of Students office at the NOVA Alexandria campus. As a supporter of restorative justice, Mr. Baisden is dedicated to disrupting the epidemic of disproportionate mass incarceration among minority communities. He plans to create a statistical model to present to lawmakers who aggregate the relationship between recidivism rates and policies that hinder ex-offenders entering the workplace after paying their debts to society.

Christina is committed to creating a space where undocumented women feel empowered to make change happen in their communities. She envisions a community where immigrant women feel confident in expressing and addressing the injustices they face on a day-to-day basis and feel equipped to take action. This community space will be a place where these women will feel safe from discrimination or fear of deportation a place where they can plan and implement projects that they care about.

HEM is a statewide campaign that aims to lobby for homeless citizens’ rights to vote and pressure the New York state legislators to force homeless shelters to act as physical addresses for homeless residents living in the facilities. HEM will also work towards registering homeless citizens through PO Boxes.

When Khari Baker was not trying to get healthier food options for the student body as Mr. Food and Nutrition, he worked diligently to find ways to help students on campus, and in the community, find viable ways to pay for education. He communicated with the Dean of Students and organized meetings with other staff to ensure that education was valued and help was accessible.

2008 Northern Michigan University Fellows worked to create a more engaged and democratic campus through grassroots organizing, the establishment of social activist networks, and the harnessing of student political and social power.

This project seeks to create and implement an alumni network for Gatorship, a social justice education retreat program at the University of Florida. Through 4 weekend retreats, Gatorship educates 300+ students on diversity and social justice issues each year. The program is run by a team of 2-4 Directors and 14-17 Assistant Directors, as well as an Advisor. Since staff members are heavily involved in and committed to the program, the alumni network will begin as exclusively for current and past staff members. It will seek to provide past staff members with updates about the program, advocacy opportunities, and relevant information catered to their wants and needs. It will also serve the program by creating a steady stream of testimonials from which to use in marketing, as well as help make fundraising for the program easier.

Teressa Unaliin Baldwin is Inupiaq from Kotzebue, Alaska, a small Native village 30 miles above the Arctic Circle. Teressa has focused her own work in the Native American community. She has developed a passion in mental health from a young age. Teressa traveled to over 30 indigenous communities speaking about the importance of mental health and suicide prevention. She focused her work on developing culturally relevant trainings and workshops to engage youth in the discussion around suicide prevention. Teressa was recognized by President Obama as one of his Champions of Change in 2011 for her work in native communities. Teressa has developed her early career in Washington D.C. working for a National Native organization. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for the National Indian Child Welfare Association, a nationwide non-profit that focuses on the wellbeing of indigenous children in the Foster Care system. She will be a first year graduate student at Columbia University this fall where she will be working towards a Master’s of Science in Social Work. Teressa is an alumna of UC San Diego where she earned her bachelors of arts in sociology- science and medicine.

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Zane’s Blueprint calls for the development and launch of a campus LGBTQ+ SafeSpace Program. This program involves training students, faculty, residence staff, Greek life officers, and young professionals at Millsaps College to enable them to foster and maintain safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students and employees in all facets of campus life. Zane’s Blueprint involves group trainings and passive programming through publicly accessible LGBTQ+ educational resource guides, as well as the development of trained student and faculty contacts dedicated to promoting secure and inclusive spaces for LGBTQ+ members of the campus community. The initiative also calls for the trainings of student SafeSpace facilitators in an effort to increase the number of trainings and ensure sustainability of the program. Additionally, Zane is focusing on revising Millsaps College’s non-discrimination policy to encompass gender, gender identity, and gender expression; building a constituency that can address concerns of the LGBTQ+ community in the Jackson area; and linking Millsaps College into the developing network of safe spaces, queer organizations, and institutions across Mississippi and the continental southeast.

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Melissa was a Senator at Texas A&M University for the College of Education who sought to improve the university for those involved and concerned with the university. She did this through her Senate role by connecting with constituents and administration to find out their concerns and what she could do to improve the conditions.

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Know Yourself is a comprehensive sexual education program designed for teenagers and young adults in Kansas. Know Yourself focuses on education and reproductive justice, and strives to fill in the gaps left by abstinence-only sexual education, by serving as a community intervention. Know Yourself strives to include groups often excluded in traditional education such as, but not limited to, LGBTQIA+ individuals, survivors of sexual trauma, and low-income youth. Know Yourself will deliver comprehensive, effective, trauma-informed sexual education through a free, self-paced, online classroom format that allows students to get an introduction to through student organizations focused on reproduction justice issues in both high school and college on, with the goal of showing students why their sexual health matters, and how they can reclaim it.

BLUEPRINT: Reclaiming the Black Cultural Center Library at Bryn Mawr. The Black Cultural Center Library in the Bryn Mawr community was in need of repair, funding, and programming. YP4 Fellows at Bryn Mawr worked through their Blueprints for Social Justice and Sisterhood to reclaim the library as an institution that is able to serve the student community. They did so by building the library’s collection, by developing a space, structure and staff for discussions around Black culture and Black history, and through forging connections with local service-learning organizations like Books Through Bars.

Claudio Barboza was a student at St. Olaf College. He majored in economics and political science with minors in Latin American and management studies. Originally from Venezuela, Claudio earned a scholarship to attend UWC-USA, where he became interested in social entrepreneurship, international development, and upward social mobility. In the past, he was involved with the Program for Reconstruction.

The KC (Kern County) We Stand initiative will strengthen Kern County’s District 4 rural communities’ relationship with their representatives. Representatives would include their board of supervisors; congressional representatives; school district members; parent and student advocates. The reason is so constituents could see the active participation from their community and other communities in Kern County. In District 4, there lays many rural communities that have been forgotten because of their location. Although, this initiative will help these forgotten communities with knowledge on how representatives are serving them and how they could become more civically engaged. This would be done through the existing organization: Dolores Huerta Foundation

Knowledge = Power seeks to implement a program in the Metro Atlanta area for underprivileged high school students so that they know the importance of college and career-readiness as well as civic engagement and basic civil rights.

Emma is originally from south-central Kansas and entered her year at Kansas State University as a Fellow. There she pursued a degree in Political Science and International Studies with minors in Women’s Studies and Nonprofit Leadership Studies. While at K-State, Emma advocated for social justice through numerous progressive student organizations. As a Student Senator, she frequently met with state legislators and lobbied for comprehensive sex education, reproductive health care, gun control on college campuses, inclusive state bathroom policies and much more. Emma also worked in the Center for Advocacy, Response, and Education at K-State. This office provided advocacy to students who have experienced sexual violence. Through her work in the CARE Office and as a 4 term Student Senator, Emma worked to make sure K-State followed Title IX and supported survivors of sexual assault in every capacity. Emma is a proud member of Alpha Xi Delta sorority and was a member of Blue Key Honorary. When Emma isn’t hosting a rally or lobbying at the state capitol, she enjoys watching documentaries and cooking vegetarian meals. Emma Barnett also interned during summer 2016 with Young People For and supported the development of the Gender & Sexuality Justice Curriculum.

Emily Barney attended Arizona State University and studied Public Service and Public Policy with a minor in Political Science and a certificate in Women & Gender Studies. She was extremely involved in a variety of different social and academic organizations on campus, most notably Barrett, the Honors College. She was also the Director of Social Events in a community service based organization on campus, and additionally, she conducted undergraduate research with ASU’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Emily is exceedingly passionate about politics as she has interned for Arizona Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema and worked with the Andrew Goodman Foundation to host voter registration drives and advocacy events on campus. She is excited to work with Young People For to create a dynamic plan to advance social change in her community.

BLUEPRINT: Climate Change Compact at Stanford University. Stanford University YP4 Fellows worked with Campus Climate Challenge to call for a strong University commitment to the challenge of climate change, and to catalyze the institution-wide changes that will fulfill those commitments. They worked to push Stanford to become a principal signatory to the Campus Climate Change Compact by the end of the 2006 academic year, put the plan into effect by the 2007, and made measurable strides in implementation of on-campus renewable energy generation by the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year.

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Through her Blueprint, Gabriela worked to help students with disabilities to become more integrated into college life and society at large, including the educational, political, and economic processes of our country.

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BLUEPRINT: Organizing to Save Affirmative Action in Michigan. In the November 2006 elections, a statewide ballot initiative called the “”Michigan Civil Rights Initiative”” aimed to ban affirmative action policies and outreach programs at all publicly funded state institutions including higher education institutions. The ballot initiative was sponsored by Ward Connerly

“BLUEPRINT: Organizing to Save Affirmative Action in Michigan. In the November 2006 elections, a statewide ballot initiative called the “”Michigan Civil Rights Initiative”” aimed to ban affirmative action policies and outreach programs at all publicly funded state institutions including higher education institutions. The ballot initiative was sponsored by Ward Connerly

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My name is Jason Baskette and I use they/them pronouns. I am an agender identified disabled person. I am an artist and designer by nature and am currently working on my second bachelor’s, this time in Graphic Design. I grew up in Connecticut and currently reside in New Haven, CT. I have done a lot of educational work surround Trans rights and Trans/gender variant work in college. At this stage in life I am using my art to bring together people from all walks of life to create and express themselves. I am also a very outspoken member of the mental health community. Most of my work there is speaking on various social media platforms on the intersection of gender identity and mental health and the struggles that come with it.

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Get Registered! is a campaign on Florida State University’s campus to raise awareness about National Voter Registration Day and institutionalize it so FSU’s student population is registered to vote and more civically engaged. The ability to vote in an election for any level of government is a right that every American citizen has. First observed in 2012, National Voter Registration Day in the United States is the 4th Tuesday of every September with the goal of creating awareness of voter registration opportunities to reach thousands of voters who may not, for whatever reason, register. Kadian plans to utilize her student government connections to get an official resolution passed in the Student Senate saying that Florida State University recognizes National Voter Registration Day and will make an effort to provide information to students about it.

“BLUEPRINT: Organizing to Save Affirmative Action in Michigan. In the November 2006 elections, a statewide ballot initiative called the “”Michigan Civil Rights Initiative”” aimed to ban affirmative action policies and outreach programs at all publicly funded state institutions including higher education institutions. The ballot initiative was sponsored by Ward Connerly

“BLUEPRINT: Organizing to Save Affirmative Action in Michigan. In the November 2006 elections, a statewide ballot initiative called the “”Michigan Civil Rights Initiative”” aimed to ban affirmative action policies and outreach programs at all publicly funded state institutions including higher education institutions. The ballot initiative was sponsored by Ward Connerly

JaQuan Beachem is a millennial interested in utilizing the arts for community creation and social change. JaQuan is a first generation Atlanta Posse scholar that recently graduated from Bard College with a bachelor’s in Theater & Performance. While an undergraduate through Executive & the Multicultural Diversity Committees he helped reinstate and institutionalize the Council for Inclusive Excellence on campus which strives to evaluate the campus climate. During his fellowship year with a YP4 fellow, JaQuan co-founded CREATIVE RESISTANCE, which aims to foster space for folks to engage with art as a means of reflection, to explore identity and trauma. This art collective pulls from the philosophies of authentic movement, mindfulness and ensemble theater practices. Currently, JaQuan works with his alma mater’s Admissions Office where he plans to continue facilitating critical social justice-oriented conversations while bridging the gaps in representation and educational access within higher education.

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Queers for Economic Liberation seeks to supply more aid to low-income queers living in rural areas by empowering their clients to advocate for the assistance they need while simultaneously providing them with vital resources they need to survive.

BLUEPRINT: Campus Climate Challenge at Temple University. YP4 Fellows at Temple University worked with the Sierra Club Student Coalition to engage in the Campus Climate challenge. They were able to sign up young Philadelphians to embrace the idea of wind power in their homes and pushed the University to adopt a variety of energy saving policies.

BLUEPRINT: Campus Climate Challenge at Temple University. YP4 Fellows at Temple University worked with the Sierra Club Student Coalition to engage in the Campus Climate challenge. They were able to sign up young Philadelphians to embrace the idea of wind power in their homes and pushed the University to adopt a variety of energy saving policies.

NBC is a community intervention that aims to provide direct educational and extracurricular services for the inner-city youth and educators in Baltimore City, MD. NBC’s mission is to condition goal-oriented youthful minds, to self-advocate for their own educational goals, and realize their academic potential.

Aware Media Solutions is an organization that wishes to work with schools in South Hadley and Holyoke in Massachusetts to have kids and young adults in middle school and high school read books that have characters with diverse identities and have access to documentaries on a variety of topics such as food access and climate change. Aware Media Solutions seeks to design curricula that are explicitly consciousness-raising. The organization wants students to critically think about how what they watch affects how they see the world. The organization currently sees a lack of critical thinking in the education of today, while students desperately need and crave it. Our world needs critical thinking because today’s students need a deep understanding of both US culture and politics.

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Megan worked to create Bigger Picture Feminism by building the leadership and capacity of SMU’s Women’s Interest Network in order to show how campus activism translates influences the feminist movement on a national and worldwide level.

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The Colored Girls Empowerment Project (C.G.E.P.) aims to create community amongst young women, femmes, trans and non-binary folks of color in the Bronx and provides financial literacy training to prepare young people to invest in their futures. We aim to equip students with knowledge and life skills that will empower them to take control of their lives and their futures. CGEP’s curriculum will consist of teaching students to save and budget, fill out a FAFSA, read a financial aid package, apply to scholarships, manage credit cards, entrepreneurship, taxes, homeownership and retirement planning. By the end of the program, youth will be able to make informed financial decisions as they move through life.

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Roberto, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti has always had an interest for social change. As a young child, he could be seen helping people that were less fortunate, often sneaking in a few quarters into a homeless man’s hand when his parents were not looking. His interest in human rights took a pivotal turn in first grade after watching a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. From then on he went to research notable leaders such as Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi. Instantaneously his longing for a sense of leadership and social change took off. Today, Roberto is well known for his leadership as Student Council VP, NAACP Education Chair and has continued to serve the underserved by volunteering at Habitat for Humanity, and food pantries.

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Cyndi Bergloff studied linguistics at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Her focus was on literacy in underserved communities, such as the Native/ Indigenous American community. Her educational journey was not easy growing up as a person living in two cultures and much of her primary and secondary education was spent moving between homes and schools. After transferring between three schools in higher education, she found herself at home at University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. After introspection, Cyndi found that her success and grades were because of the American Indian Student Services at UWM. The advisors were not only catering to her needs as a student, but to her needs as a Native American person. After finding that her college education was not challenging her in the ways she needed it to, Cyndi decided to take two gap years away from college to do service within the community through AmeriCorps. Cyndi spent the school year in 2014-2015 serving with City Year Seattle, and school year 2015-2016 with Playworks Wisconsin. Through her two years of service and her experiences from higher education, Cyndi learned about the importance of educating and serving the whole person. Her passions lie in social-emotional learning, literacy, and equity in the educational systems and one day hopes to create a support and mentorship system for students within her communities.

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To build a community of healthy students focused on working in true, equal partnership with those in need, Rachel work to expand a global health movement that strives for community-driven, ground-up initiatives to affect positive changes in community health at the local, national, and international level. She created GlobeMed, an organization that embraced this idea grassroots engagement. Through on-site programs, GlobeMed provided concrete opportunities for chapter members to experience for themselves the power and efficacy of a true, equal partnership for affecting tangible, positive change in community health.

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Verone Bernard was a political science major and economics minor at Howard University by way of Boston, MA. She was a 2013 YP4 Fellow and an intern with the YP4 Fellowship Program from September 2013-April 2014. As a Fellow, she worked to improve dialogue at Howard University around women’s rights and reproductive health, civic engagement opportunities, and other progressive causes. Supporting YP4’s collaborative projects, she organized Howard’s campaign on Money in Elections. Her Blueprint sought to serve as a resource to individuals who needed a refresher regarding their civic rights. From reproductive justice to voter identification laws, to laws that deal with law enforcement, Verone hopes to provide creative programming and a mobile application that gives a state-by-state analysis of the law, provide resources for counsel, and connect users with ways to report individuals when their rights were violated.

Through her Blueprint, Verone is developing a mobile application that will serve as a resource to individuals who need a refresher about their rights. From reproductive justice rights to voter identification laws, the application will give a state by state analysis of the laws in question. It will also provide a feature for users to document instances in which individuals attempt to violate their rights as a way of exposing corrupt police officers and helping to address issues surrounding racial profiling. Verone’s goal is for every smart phone to have this application downloaded on to it and for people to use it as a reference similar to Google when they are unsure of what their rights are

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Gabriela was a Resident Advisor at Tulane University Housing and Residence Life, where she oversaw residential communities with a focus on diversity and inclusivity, and an Intern for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. She is dedicated to creating sustainable dialogues about privilege and discrimination, as well as creating safe spaces that cater to the needs of women of color. Her involvement with organizations like Amnesty International and Planned Parenthood has allowed her to discover her passion for women’s rights and reproductive justice. Gabriela seeks to pursue her passions and develop her skills as an organizer and advocate.

Bethany worked to create a campus culture at Ohio State in which students were engaged in politics and policy at all levels of government. She helped students realize the impact political decisions have on their lives and get them out to vote and have their voices heard in the political process. Acknowledging the importance of getting her university administration to acknowledge the importance of fostering civic engagement and creating an atmosphere that encourages voting and welcomes all types of political discourse, she worked to create organizational networks and institutional support to make voter registration, education, and mobilization a habitual and natural responsibility of student organizations and university programs.

BLUEPRINT: Ensuring student success in Houston. The University of Houston YP4 Fellows worked to increase the number of students who graduate from Yates High School and are able to advance on to college in order to decrease the poverty and unemployment surrounding UH. The YP4 Fellows formed an after school program featuring tutoring hours, college enrichment activities, and speakers to motivate students in their quest to graduate high school. The Fellows collaborated with: the UH Metropolitan Volunteer Program to find tutors, the UH Scholars Enrichment Program to hold college enrichment activities, and various education agencies in the Houston area to find motivational speakers for the students. The Fellows also held a FAFSA workshop once a month for students with questions regarding the application.

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2007 YP4 Minnesota State University, Mankato Fellows coordinated efforts to support the LGBT Center on their campus. They demanded that their administration hire a full time program coordinator, a graduate assistant, and work-study students to support the Center. They also budgeted as its own program by the administration. They were also pushed the administration to develop a budget that was unique for the LGBT Center, allow it to have adeqaute amounts of funding to host programs and events, educational resources and trainings, resources (including a library), student computer stations, and other technical/direct support of LGBTQ students and campus groups.

Through her Blueprint, YP4 Fellow Karyn hosted a small conference to encourage more progressives and people of color to gain more influence and power on her campus. Her work involved fostering more collaboration among student organizations.

YP4 Fellows at University of Texas-Austin created the Queer Leadership Institute (QLI). Through dialogue, interactive activities, training, and guest speakers, QLI poses critical questions relating to LGBTQ issues and rights to participants over the span of the institute and hopes to give participants the tools to explore questions and potential answers around transgender inclusion and safety on their campus.

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By utilizing her organization Promoting Racial Equality and Awareness (PREA), Kara looked to expand the conversations at UW-Madison around anti-oppression and privilege. Using tactics such as arts in activism, workshops and student lead events she envisions a campus free of systematic, cultural and interpersonal violence.

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Kate Black is currently serving as a Field Representative for Minnesota AFSCME Council 5, AFL-CIO, a labor union which represents workers in public employment and civil services. Kate is originally from Fargo, North Dakota and graduated with a BS in Microbiology and Chemistry from North Dakota State University. As a student, Kate served as a campus organizer with the Feminist Majority Foundation and led a team which worked in coalition with other community organizations to defeat a proposed personhood amendment to the North Dakota state constitution. Kate has also worked with Planned Parenthood affiliate groups in the state in order to facilitate healthy dialogue surrounding reproductive justice in the community, and to garner support for grassroots efforts for the organization at the national level. Kate has also worked with the North Dakota Farmers Union in their successful effort to defeat a corporate farming bill. In similar efforts, Kate led a grassroots campaign to educate around and legally challenge an unconstitutional voter ID law in her home state. During the 2016 election cycle, Kate helped in facilitating rides to polling places for those acting as water protectors during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Kate also served as an Iowa campaign organizer for MoveOn during the 2016 election, focused on grassroots organizing.

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Jasmine Blackston was the second Vice President of both the Hampton chapter of the NAACP and Misses Sociology Club. Her involvement in the Hampton Roads area stems from engaging with youth in the Lincoln Park Boys and Girls Club. They constantly reminded her of what life used to be like. She is dedicated to giving children hope and reminding them that they are not a product of their environment. Her cross-campus involvement was a practical lifestyle that required time and a character that fulfilled all moral duties. She plans to develop a non-profit catering to at-risk youth while and continuing her youth activism.

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Richmond Blake passed a campus resolution to expand his school’s non-discrimination policy to include gender identity. To increase campus support, he designed and created a week-long art installation entitled Buying for Equality, which displayed a collage of businesses with LGBTQ-inclusive policies, as identified by the 2007 Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Corporate Equality Index. There were between 150 and 200 community members at the installation’s opening, and over the course of the exposition week several hundred others saw and studied the project. A documentary on Transgender issues was also screened during the week-long project, after which attendees discussed the issues highlighted in the film. In closing the event, Richmond teamed up with his student government and the College President’s Office to host an Ice Cream Social and a tye-die membership drive event: in addition to music, ice cream, and crafts, Ice Cream Social attendees discussed HRC and its workplace anti-discrimination project, all while distributing over 100 postcards for people to sign in support of HRC’s efforts. He continued to meet with the school administration to expand the policy after his Fellowship Year.

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No Access No Choice is a multi-year national-level project with local roots that aims to provide activists with tools that are free to be reused and modified for social justice work. The project will manifest in a database website, which will include resources for reproductive justice educational workshops, creative actions to advance reproductive justice issues, and tools for activists to develop their personal organizing and leadership skills. The database will compile information regarding reproductive health issues, including issues pertaining to reproductive rights, and reproductive justice, as well as work that is already being done on the local, college, state, and national levels. No Access No Choice will work towards creating a stronger and more inclusive reproductive justice movement by working directly with communities, campus groups, and young people, between the ages 15 and 25, with a focus on college-aged students.

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Ariel envisioned a public university whose values of global service never overshadowed its commitment to the long-term health of its local community, by engaging in ethical banking and socially responsible investment practices. Fighting against the ever rising tuition costs and the irresponsible lending practices of large financial institutions who supply loans to college students, Ariel is dedicated to raising action and awareness about these dangerous practices on her campus and eventually across all of California through her Blueprint.

“BLUEPRINT: Critical Queer Perspectives on Prison Abolition. Jenny is interested in the intersections of gender, sexuality, criminalization, and race. For her Blueprint, she organized a series of events at her college, one of which was a panel with three phenomenal speakers, titled Who are the Violent Ones? Critical Queer Perspectives on Prison Abolition.”” This panel invited the community to discuss the ways that gender and sexual deviance are criminalized in our society

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Through the installation, maintenance, and diversity of an alternative to the current pay-to-play programs that dominate sports opportunities in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, ROOTED will help change that. By radically shifting the burden of cost from the community, ROOTED will provide low to no-cost activities programs that encourage cooperation, foster communal pride, and work to confront the negative effects of economic inequality; furthermore ROOTED will provide counseling services for attendees to ensure that our social impact is actively and passively reported back to us by those directly affected. Through the acquisition of federal grants, local partnerships, and corporate sponsorship, by 2020 the communities directly served by ROOTED will stand as living testimony to a renegotiation of youth sport and local investment.

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The Howard University YP4 Fellows action plan was focused on raising consciousness around issues of affirmative action and civil rights. These YP4 Fellows focused their awareness-raising efforts on the impact that judicial nominations may have on these policies. The Fellows, in conjunction with Young People For, held their first training on April 6th, 2005, which included a speaker�s panel on these issues. In addition, they teamed up with People for the American Way Foundation to hold a Fillibusterathon on April 8th, 2005 where Howard students spoke in favor of the Fillibuster for six hours.

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The Immigrant Visibility Project, also known as The Project: Immigrant, is a multi-year media campaign aimed at enhancing the immigrant of color experience across a broad spectrum and documenting the stories of immigrants by immigrants/immigrants sharing their truths not commonly found in mainstream media. The Immigrant Visibility Project will work towards achieving immigrant justice and dismantling the damaging media coverage surrounding migrants by broadcasting stories from urban centers with high immigrant populations and longstanding migratory histories. Through its successful execution, the Project: Immigrant will create sustainable systemic change, leading to more thoughtful and reflective representations of historically marginalized groups, reduced hate crimes, and discriminatory offenses on the basis of difference, and debunked myths and stereotypes derived from the American popular imagination and mythology.

Brandon Briscoe was a student at Capital University, studying Business Management. He is a first generation college student from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since being at Capital University, Brandon became an intern for Capital University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, a Student Ambassador the Admissions Office, and a member of Capital University’s Integrated Marketing Communications Committee. Brandon also served as the Co-Coordinator for Capital University’s Smooth Transitions Program. He was an Equal Opportunity Review Commission Intern for the City of Pittsburgh, the home of Mayor Bill Peduto. He has also served as the Vice President of Communications of Student Government and is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Omicron Rho chapter. After graduation, Mr. Briscoe plans to attend graduate school to pursue a Master’s Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Management. In the future, Brandon would like to start a non-profit organization which will focus on Leadership Development for Minorities/Underrepresented Populations.

Blake grew up in Madison, Wisconsin which has some of the worst disparity gaps in the nation. This heavily influenced his motivation towards attaining justice in a variety of areas. He has been involved with the Black Lives Matter movement which is active in Madison, Wisconsin. His hometown is in the national media due to a police brutality case where Tony Robinson, a 19-year-old biracial teen, lost his life. This fueled his drive to major in Political Science and minor in Urban Studies during his time at Loyola University Chicago. His focus areas are judicial reform, economic inequality, and mass incarceration. Blake has taken part in an organization called Stop Mass Incarceration Chicago. He plans to become a civil rights lawyer in the future so that he can apply his passion for making a lasting change.

Healing Those Who’ve Healed Us seeks to induce healing via storytelling through the lens of black mothers and their children’s struggles in New Orleans. This project will focus on documenting the manifestations of institutional and interpersonal racism in the Black family structure via interviews.

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Project THRIVE is a community-based project dedicated to providing resources and *necessary education to black girls in under-resourced communities. The THRIVE project will look to provide the necessary tools for black girls to navigate a world predicated on their failure. THRIVE seeks to make space for black girls to do more then obtains careers in whatever field interest them by making sure basic needs such as food, shelter, transportation, and safety are covered. We desire an inclusive, wellness-centered classroom for Black girls to fully exist in. This classroom creates the space for educators, counselors, and administrators to transform school environments and prepare Black girls for a world ready for their greatness. Through THRIVE, we hope to catalyze middle school Black girl’s
aspirations through an education that centers their liberation.

NOPPD (Network of Publishers Promoting Diversity) is a multi-year electronic resource that aims to build an online database of diversity-minded publishers. The overarching goal of this project is to create a website that serves as a database for new authors, linking these authors to existing resources and publishers who value diversity. The website has two parts: the general information tabs that link to sites promoting different avenues of diversity and representation (gender/sexuality, race, geographic, socioeconomic, etc.) and an opt-in promise that individual publishers can take that they will recruit minority writers. The online database format creates a self-mediating, self-growing platform. Because the vast majority of advertised literature, historically and in the present, reflects cisgender, white men, NOPPD can point authors toward publishers who will actually value and fairly consider their work.

Kenyetta Brown graduated from Fayetteville Technical Community College with an Associate of Science degree in Early Childhood Education. She was a member of The National Society of Leadership and Success that rewarded excellence in the areas of academic honors, leadership and community service. Along with these honors, she has experience in community outreach from her years volunteering every Saturday at Holy Mission. She was also a two-year active member of Southern Early Childhood Association.

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Keeping Kids With Caregivers is a 2021-2022 bill proposal for the state of Georgia to mandate courts to evaluate care options for keeping parents & legal guardians connected to their children if the offense is non-violent.

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Lea was a sedulous Bonner scholar who attended Guilford College. Before Guilford, Lea took a gap year to earn her pharmacy technician license and worked as a local store marketing manager. She also worked for the Multicultural Education Department and founded her own Queer People Of Color organization on campus. She has focused on justice and policy studies, African American studies, women, gender and sexuality studies, as well as English and psychology.

Nazshonnii (or Naz) attended Union College in upstate New York. As a Mechanical Engineering major and French minor, she has found ways to connect her rigorous STEM background to her dream of being a traveling polyglot. No matter how far from home, Naz has managed to stay connected with the roots from her birthplace, the Navajo reservation and hometown Oakland, CA. At Union, she was a work-study student for the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, Hillel’s Kosher Kitchen Coordinator, African Student Associations’ Treasurer, and a leader in the SAE Aero Club.

Charlie Bruce is a white, queer, nonbinary, educator, activist, and artist whose work is rooted Black liberation, native sovereignty, and LGBT equality.
Native to south side Virginia, they’ve worked in different capacities such as campaigning, demonstrating, podcasting, and painting a banner or two.
As an activist, they are most interested in storytelling to address issues of personal and historical traumas.
They will be applying their experience and values at a college in Philadelphia. In their free time, they explore the wonderful world of fermented foods.

Through his Blueprint, George worked to decrease the rate of recidivism amongst and empower the graduates of the White Plains City Drug Court program.

Jahque Bryan-Gooden is a woke womxn on a mission. She is dedicated to serving others and embodies the qualities needed to be a catalyst for change in her community. She is passionate and committed to many issue areas that include racial justice, women’s’ rights, economic equality and educational equity. She is a first generation college student and recognized the impact that education has on both an individual and a community and aspires to enter the field of education reform to bring forth these benefits. Jahque holds the belief that all people are responsible for contributing to meaningful community development. She hopes to use her personal, academic and professional experience to continue to fight white supremacy and be an advocate for marginalized communities. In her spare time, Jahque enjoys writing spoken word, going for walks and traveling. Above all, she hopes that even small changes can result in lasting effects.

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Operation Queer and Trans Inclusive UDC is an ongoing initiative to gain institutional support to ensure that university staff, faculty, and students are intentional about being committed to fostering an environment that affirms, supports, and accepts Queer and Trans students on UDC’s campus.

2007 UC Berkeley Fellows were able to build a progressive power structure on their campus through student government initiatives.

Jessiona was a Psychology major and African and African-American Studies minor. She was the former director of programming for the Black Student Union and is an avid believer in dedicating time to community service efforts. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. In her spare time, Jessiona volunteers at local schools in the New Orleans area. In the future, she hopes to become an AmeriCorps and Peace Corps member.

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By Us, For Us (BUFU) is a year-round project designed to create intentional safe spaces and enhance the student life experience for queer and trans Black, Indigenous, and people of color (QTBIPOC) at the University of North Texas. Though UNT is now a minority-serving institution, students have expressed concern regarding the lack of faculty of color who understand the intersections of their identities. BUFU references a study conducted with Black queer and trans students at UNT. The study found that spaces centered on students of color do not acknowledge and support the Black LGBTQ+ experiences; instead, those spaces erase the experiences. Spaces that prioritize queer and trans students are dominated by White students on the queer and transgender spectrums.

Community Learning in Queer Underserved Ecosystem (CLIQUE) exists to find new ways to empower Queer and Trans People of Color (QTPOC). While the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) population is under-researched, LGBTQ-identifying people of color are heavily ignored by research despite suffering from high levels of poverty, violence, and health risks. CLIQUE strives to bring awareness of the inequities that Queer and Trans People of Color experience QTPOC by using a social network matrix analysis, which does research by seeing how the different people surveyed are connected to other people in their community, to observe the way QTPOC support systems function and find ways for providers to use these support systems to distribute resources directly to these communities in need.

Noticing a lack of involvement from Howard University student in campus, local, and national politics, Celia dedicated her Blueprint for Social Justice to combatting the general apathy in her campus community. Her primary goal was to connect important issues that concern individuals and organizations to civic engagement and thus spark more involvement.

Dominik is a tenacious pioneer with a passion for uplifting and providing motivation to his peers and future generations. Serving as a correspondent for the Student Government Association of Florida A&M University, Dominik was a constant advocate for social issues and the importance of incorporating unity in the community. As an Insider, he is dedicated to providing a vision for the less fortunate and extending his hand to those looking to elevate the masses.

Jamira is organizing a series of “ExOffenders University” workshops, with the goal of engaging youth who are ex-offenders reentering society and working with them to reduce the likelihood that they become repeat offenders. Working with the City of Philadelphia’s ReEnter program, Jamira hopes to match youth participants with mentors to work with the youth on issues such as education, voting, and civic participation, professional development, etc.

Brittany Burnam is a graduate of the University of North Texas. She received her Bachelors of Science in Sociology with a minor in Social Sciences. She served in many organizations and roles included The Amazin’ Zeta Eta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., UNT Positivity Ambassadors, an SGA Senator, and a Youth Marketing Director for Cherie on Top Community Center. After her first year as UNT NAACP president, she worked with her organization and the next year they won the: National Chapter of the Year award, Economic Empowerment Award, and Voter Empowerment Award. She also served her second year as UNT NAACP President. She has spent much of her time empowering, educating, and advocating for the rights of women, poverty in America, voting rights, education, and people of color. A community organizer and educator, Brittany Burnam has spoken at and organized many programs for the community. Her first act that she was proud of was being able to speak at the rally at capitol hill in Austin, TX for social welfare and social worker rights. Brittany hopes to create a non-profit that creates opportunities and bridges the gap for those in disadvantaged communities. Also, creating her own business working with businesses and organizations to help them with their own missions and goals. With a unique focus on the social good, she is one that believes your story is someone’s testimony. You should never be ashamed of who you are or your past, but use your story as an advantage and how you can use it to look forward to the future.

The Resilient Youth Collaborative (RYC) is a network of support for children of incarcerated parents in Poughkeepsie, New York. Currently, more than 105,000 children in New York State have a parent in jail or prison . Due to the stigma attached to people involved in the criminal justice system, these children can be faced with a diminished social network and a dearth of necessary social services. The goal of this community-based initiative is to raise this issue to public attention by mobilizing young activists across three college campuses in Poughkeepsie. Through partnerships with local schools, social media campaigns, and public educational opportunities, the Resilient Youth Collaborative brings these youth’s experiences to the forefront.

Pahin Sinte Otipi: Waunspe Olepi (PSO) in Lakota literally translates into “Porcupine Dwelling: To Gather or Collect”. PSO is a multi-year reservation wide investment into the mental health and well-being of Native American youth through the concepts of leadership, the Lakota values, stewardship, and what it means to maintain a harmonious balance in life. PSO will work to achieve breaking the cycles of numerous manifestations Native Americans have grown to accept; ranging from but not limited to, understanding intergenerational trauma & its effects on descendants of boarding schools, addressing cultural ethics and social norms throughout Indian Country, knowing our relationship with Mother Earth (stewardship), living the Lakota way of life (respect, generosity, love & compassion, fortitude, honesty & truth, wisdom, and prayer), incorporating yoga or meditation to seek balance, and just letting the people know it’s okay to ask for help.

By utilizing her organization Ladies of the Quad Social Club, Howard University School of Business and other education based groups on campus Jennifer worked to create and implement a program that will provide African American high school students in Washington DC with the tools necessary to thrive and survive post high school. Her goal was to help educated local DC youth on the importance of going to college/university or obtaining a job. Jennifer created a program that featured speakers and presenters targeted at a small set of DC based public school.

Amina’s Blueprint was implemented to urge students on her campus to consistently uphold and advocate civil rights, justice, and tolerance. It focused primarily on addressing issues of religious discrimination against Muslims and the social factors the allow for such intolerance to be perpetuated. This project helped raise awareness surrounding issues pertaining to Muslim students, allowing them to be received with reasonable consideration and accommodation rather than be hostility or apathy, thus allowing Muslims to be better understood and accepted within the rich fabric of American pluralism, not stereotyped and alienated.

QueerxKidz is an organization addressing the lack of representation and centering of people of color in LGBT spaces in Miami. QueerxKids will provide a space of comfort and incorporate leadership, creativity, activities, and compassion skills.

Luz was the Vice-President of the Latin American Student Association at Rollins College; an organization which aims to educate the community on relevant issues, both political and social, and engage the community in constructive dialogue. She was also active in the feminist organization on campus, Voices 4 Women, as well as the Students Against Sexual Assault group, which created workshops to empower college students and community members to be proactive in stopping sexual assault and to promote healing. She hopes to continue her work and for the programs to continue making an impact and bringing diversity to her campus.

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Brandon’s blueprint addresses youth expression and empowerment through a group led creative writing workshop for queer youth of color during the summer months. The Blueprint aims to sync art with activism, and creativity with coalition-building. By helping to cultivate written avenues of resistance, and by linking participants with various artistic communities throughout the city, Brandon’s Blueprint will not only provide a safe space for these youth but also support them as they learn how to build such a space them for themselves and with others. While many high schools have developed safe spaces that target queer youth, these spaces do not always allow youth of color the same openness to process racial relations that may conflict in this space. By targeting high schools throughout the city, particularly those of upper Manhattan, his blueprint first addresses the lack of material reflecting a queer experience in high curricula, supplanting it with a course packet of memoir targeting POC youth. Secondly, it seeks to embolden students into publicizing their expression by connecting them with grassroots literary journals for queers of color that remedy the marginalization felt in the larger realm of publishing and grant them new sources of reflection and identification.

Emmy was an economics major and served as an Advocate at the WATCH CDC Housing Clinic. As an intern for the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, she developed a strong passion for issues of economic justice and wealth inequality. Emmy is dedicated to the development of civic engagement and educational initiatives as mechanisms of addressing society’s most pressing socioeconomic disparities. A co-founder of No Labels at Brandeis University, she hopes to expand the civic involvement in fostering dialogue and engagement of students and the community on socioeconomic issues.

BLUEPRINT: Web Development through Reciprocal Learning. Emmy’s Blueprint seeks to address the issues of economic injustice by exposing students in underserved communities to quality STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education, with a focus on the inner-city and immigrant populations. Exposing youth in these communities to web development and coding skills through pair-programming-oriented mentorship by local Computer Science college students, coupled with the development of web applications and browser-based games, Emmys Blueprint develops and inspires the next generation of tech leaders from underrepresented backgrounds by providing them with the resources and mentorship they need to succeed in STEM. Emmys Blueprint also focuses on teaching basic computer and web skills to older folks in the community to bridge the common communication gap between youth and elders. With the investment of Emmys programming, youth in her community will then be able to teach computer and web skill classes to the older generation. Emmy has begun working with local non-profit organizations and public schools in the Boston community and hopes to eventually expand her program nationwide and internationally. Her ultimate vision is for all underrepresented and underserved youth to have the opportunity to create, innovate, and lead in the technology field and to find a creative outlet through technology.

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Emmy was an economics major and served as an Advocate at the WATCH CDC Housing Clinic. As an intern for the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, she developed a strong passion for issues of economic justice and wealth inequality. Emmy is dedicated to the development of civic engagement and educational initiatives as mechanisms of addressing society’s most pressing socioeconomic disparities. A co-founder of No Labels at Brandeis University, she hopes to expand the civic involvement in fostering dialogue and engagement of students and the community on socioeconomic issues.

Sixto Cancel is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University who grew up in foster care. His is the founder of Think of Us, a commitment of action for the Clinton Global Initiative. Cancel also serves as a Youth Innovation Advisor to Dell and is a member of the Youth Thrive Expert Panel. Cancel has been named a Millennial Maker by BET and recognized as one of the Top 24 Changemakers under 24 in the country by the Campaign for a Presidential Youth Council and Sparkaction. Cancel has been quoted on NPR’s “Tell Me More,” Fox News, and by the Huffington Post. Cancel presented issues facing black, LGBT youth in foster care at the White House’s Black LGBT Emerging Leaders Briefing.

There is a huge stigma surrounding mental health, particularly among young people of color. Black and brown youth suffer from institutional oppression that may come in the form of racism, economic violence, and criminalization. Internalizing oppression further makes young people negatively impacted by mental health issues such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression. Hip hop fundamentally began to give a voice to black and brown communities and can serve as a powerful art form that facilitates collective healing. This Blueprint Proposal for Social Justice aims to de-stigmatize mental health among young people of color in Oakland through uplifting the therapeutic influence of the artivism known as hip hop

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Betty envisions a society in which limited English proficient (LEP) individuals have all the necessary resources to fully engage and participate in all aspects of society: a society in which multiculturalism is celebrated and not stigmatized; a society in which cross-cultural coalition is a known expectation as opposed to a hindered task; a society in which institutions, communities, and individuals openly communicate with one another to create the prosperous society we all deserve. As the Parent Organizer at Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), Betty develops leadership development training for limited English proficient Chinese parents in order to provide them with tools to advocate in their schools and communities. As the Education Advocate, she worked with students, parents, community leaders, and public agencies to address educational issues and policies affecting low-income, limited-English speaking, and immigrant communities.

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The Beauty in the Struggle (BITS) program is a fellowship that seeks to cultivate freshman and sophomore high school students of color to help them achieve their full potential. Through a three-day workshop followed by a mentoring program, students in Austin area high schools will be given the tools to succeed in high school and move on to higher education regardless of the boundaries put in front of them such as the school-to-prison pipeline. The fellowship highlights the unique experiences of each of these students and helps reposition the struggles these students face, or will face, as an asset rather than the reason for their downfall. The program builds confidence in these students and works with programs at the University of Texas at Austin to give them the tools needed to be able to achieve their goals.

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Fellows hosted a language fair for six Dine Reservation elementary schools to inspire pride and ownership over the Navajo language in young Native-American students.

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Alejandro Romo Carrillo is a son of Mexican-immigrant parents, Oakdale native, attended Modesto student College, YP4 2014-2015 Alumni and has been a Community Organizer in Merced for Communities for a New California Education Fund. He has several years of experience in political organizing, community outreach, capacity building and leadership development. Alex got his start in social justice work through the Youth Action Commission of Stanislaus County, in 2007, where he began as a volunteer and within five years served as its Executive Director. Alex developed and implemented programs to engage young people (11-18 years old) in civic participation within Stanislaus County. He is a co-founder and was President of a student organization called “The Freedom Forum”, a non-partisan political club, at Modesto student College. During his time as President of The Freedom Forum, he helped organize and execute a scholarship fund for civically engaged students, raising over $3,000.00 in seed money for scholarships. Through Young People For, Alejandro developed a social justice blueprint focused on developing young leaders and unlocking their potential in the San Joaquin Valley. He was a member of the Courts Cohort where Fellows and Alumni develop strategic plans on how to impact the United States judicial system. He is passionate about social economic issues, LGBTQ/Civil/Human rights, campaign finance disclosure reform, issues that impact rural communities in California and youth leadership development. When he is not organizing and studying, he is traveling or visiting the nearest beach.

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This blueprint’s core focus is to bring local and statewide awareness of the undocumented experience, as well as to humanize undocumented individuals in the conservative climate of the State of Oklahoma. The climate of the state has made it very clear that being undocumented is seen as a criminal offense and less of a human rights issue. This project aims to take on this issue through conducting a series of teach-ins in combination with art showcases to provide a broad picture of the undocumented experience and a platform for those voices through different formats of knowledge sharing. It also aims to reach out to undocumented individuals without displacing them or placing them in danger to show there are resources for them to utilize in the Oklahoma area.

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Sapphire Carter was a honors student and Gates Millennium Scholar who studied International Relations at Carroll College in Helena, Montana. She is an enrolled member of the Chippewa-Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy’s Reservation in Montana. Sapphire was also a member of the National Congress of American Indian’s Youth Cabinet. She is passionate about Native American issues and policy as well as women’s rights. As an intern at Montana’s Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education for the statewide GEAR UP program, she compiled research on services that would most benefit high school students in their pursuit of higher education. She organized an Oxfam Hunger Banquet to give awareness about poverty and hunger around the world. The coordinator of Helena Food Share attended and gave information about local poverty within the community. Sapphire loves to travel. Some of her adventures include the Amazon jungle in Peru, South Korea, and Europe.

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Tiesha is dedicated to promoting social justice and, through her Blueprint, she worked with the Grafton prison system located near her Oberlin campus community. Tiesha’s work focused on ways to help prison inmates from re-entering the corrections system after their initial release. In order to accomplish these goals, Tiesha offered two classes for inmates to better their skills in reading, writing, and speaking/self-presentation.

Maria was a student at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she served as a mentor and the Internal Co-Director for the Scholars’ Latino Initiative (SLI), a three-year mentoring program that served Latino high school students in surrounding communities. Through her work with SLI, she became very passionate about reducing the educational achievement gap. As an advocate for equal opportunity, she hopes that her involvement targeted at youth will empower and inspire them to become change-makers within their communities.

Colors of Death is a performance and online platform about holistic death care. This project confronts one’s personal relationship to death, prepares one legally for medical and post mortem care, and uses Earth based practices and rituals to embrace death as an opportunity for intimacy, healing, and growth.

Artistas del Barrio: Neighborhood Artists is a collaborative art initiative that engages artists of all skill levels and community members in Los Angeles, CA in an effort to bring more attention to the social justice issues that marginalized communities are working on. Artistas del barrio aims to do this and to bring awareness to the importance of celebrating ethnic diversity through art events and workshops. This group is composed of artists from historically marginalized communities in Los Angeles that will provide free events and workshops to their communities. This program will serve as a platform for artists to start their careers and network with other artists and arts organizations. Ultimately, we will give resources to aspiring artists to bring art programs and events to marginalized communities.

Sarah was a pioneering member of the Social Justice Fellows Program at Rollins College and was an active member of both the feminist and LGBTQ+ activist organizations on campus. Her passion areas include working with children and addressing the issue of access to education. She is committed to looking at all concerns through multiple lenses and building community by personally embracing every individual in all of their identities. Sarah was involved with programming events for students and also worked as the assistant managing editor of a literary journal

Paul seeks to end the discrimination of differently-abled students on his campus by advocating for higher levels of accessibility and awareness, thus creating an environment where people enable and empower one another despite physical differences. Paul is working to eradicate the ableism that exists in his local community and on Swarthmore’s campus by working with Swarthmore’s faculty and administration in order to create fair policies for differently-abled students. Paul hopes that through these efforts there will be a reduction of differently-abled students who withdraw, transfer, take leaves of absence, or are unjustly placed on academic probation.

Ashley Causey was a Special Education major at Winthrop University. She was a Lecture and Diversity Chair of the DiGiorgio Student Union bringing various acts to campus to promote awareness about different cultures to Winthrop’s community. Ashley is a McNair Scholar and studied how colleges of education can incorporate multicultural education in their teacher preparation program. She was also Vice President of Internal Diversity Training for Multicultural Student Council. Ashley plans to attend graduate school for Educational Leadership with a focus in advocacy and policy. In the future, Ashley hopes to work with building connections between communities and schools.

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The Undocumented and Black Curriculum aims to empower and make accessible information to undocumented Black immigrants and Black immigrants in California at large but specifically in the city of Los Angeles through an educational approach that will serve as a pipeline for leadership development eventually leading people to grassroots mobilization. The Undocumented and Black Curriculum will tackle the lack of accessibility that Black immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, have when it comes to policies that directly affect them, such as immigration, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), War on Drugs, Family Readiness, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and ways they can access resources regardless of immigration status.

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Through her Blueprint, Sydney worked to bring community members together, especially young people, who were interested in improving their predominantly Latino community through meaningful social justice work by restarting the Sueos del Barrio program, gaining additional support from the larger community and universities around New York City and establishing a Young Women’s Leadership Seminar Series.

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Through her Blueprint, YP4 Fellows Viridiana worked to encourage collaboration between Latina/o youth at Pomona College and local high schools. She worked with the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) of a local high school in the city of Pomona and the Latino club at the college, Empowered Latin@s in Action, to collaborate throughout the semester and for years to come. Viri’s vision for her work is to give younger generations of Latina/os examples of college students that come from similar backgrounds and that they can relate to and trust, and to create a space that connects college-aged and high school-aged youth to develop future leaders of social justice movements, encourage high school students to continue to fight for these movements, and collectively share ideas, encouragement, and skills to continue in these movements.

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Bernice Huiying Chan is the daughter of immigrant parents from Toisan, China. She attended Wellesley College, where she created her own Ethnic Studies Major and was a lead organizer of a student movement calling for the college to institutionalize Ethnic Studies and provide greater resources for marginalized students. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Huiying experienced and witnessed the racism and injustices within schools in relation to how working -class Asian immigrants are treated in society. She strives for a day when the next generation does not have to experience the same inequalities and one where children of color are not ashamed of their roots and home language. Huiying loves to write, perform at Open Mics, and engage in anything related to the creative arts.

“BLUEPRINT: Empowering Young Asian Americans. YP4 Fellow Arthur Chan felt there was a large discrepancy between different ethnic groups (within the Asian or Asian-American label) as well as a lack of unity. To address these needs within his community, Arthur used his Blueprint for Social Justice to create a leadership seminar called “”Empowering Young Asian-Americans.”” The seminar was designed and presented to Asian-American high school students in the D.C. Area. Arthur focused on civic engagement training as well as attempting to convey the necessary skills (public speaking

Nick Chan is a Houston native and proud Texan. He is a first generation Chinese American and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin where he studied Government and Asian Studies. He finds passion in the intersections of racial justice, gender equity, and global LGBTQ protections. In 2014, Nick worked at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute developing curriculum for ESL language learning programs and spent his summer at UC Berkeley as a PPIA Fellow. During his year, he was a White House Initiative on Asian American and Pacific Islanders E3 Ambassador and YP4 Fellow, centering his blueprint project around an Asian American student conference in Austin. He worked as a legal assistant for a Chinese telecommunications company managing international business markets that cater to Asian immigrant populations in the US. During his free time, he enjoys binge watching Rupaul’s Drag Race reruns, playing board games, and cuddling with his cat Jovi.

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ENGAGE: Thurston is a county-wide campaign to increase voter and civic engagement in marginalized populations. Washington state has been working hard to address voter rights at the state level, but at the local level, most of the efforts are being focused only on voter registration. Automatic voter registration will be implemented 2020 – this is the right time to engage voters, future voters and advocates at a deeper level to identify barriers to voting and civic engagement while centering the experiences of marginalized populations. ENGAGE: Thurston will work towards increasing constituent engagement and participation through a series of community conversations and trainings. Coco will focus on developing strategies for coalition building and train a group of volunteers to create systemic change in our community beyond voter registration and beyond the 2018 elections.

Dominique is interested in ensuring that the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) on her campus is well-resourced and able to support the varying needs of the students it serves on campus. Working with Student Government, her Blueprint sought to conduct a survey of students eligible for SDRC services to identify real needs on campus, implemented an environmental scan of all the resources that were available, and drafted and presented a proposal to meet the needs of students on campus to decision-makers on campus.

Mili was an International Affairs and Political Science major at Florida State University. She was the core-leader of the Lake Worth chapter of Students Working for Equal Rights (SWER), a youth-led organization that aimed to address the needs of the immigrant community. She also worked on the “We Are Florida!” campaign, raising awareness about racial profiling bills in Florida. She was also an intern for Palm Beach County Coalition for Immigrant Rights (PBCCIR), implementing K Your Rights training for the immigrant community and researching the history of Florida’s immigrant rights movement.

Joe is a passionate environmentalist. From being a vegetarian to canvassing door to door to stop the pollution of coal plants in Michigan. He knows that true change starts with the individual. Though he is a hard worker for the environment, his true passion lies in history and archaeology which was what he majored in. Aside from work, he also enjoys coaching JV high school softball and playing it as well.

Queer Clothing Swap is a state-wide campaign that aims to provide gently used clothing, education, and healing for members of the organization. The purpose is to provide access to clothing, health care information, and connect QTPOC+ identified people with others in the community who identify as such.

Bekki attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. She was a double major in Critical Media & Cultural Studies and Art History, with a double minor in English and Sexuality, Women’s, & Gender Studies. She held leadership positions in several of her college’s activist organizations, such as Spectrum (Rollins College’s LGBTQ+ organization) and Voices for Women. She is particularly passionate about disability rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and cultural heritage/property issues. She plans to pursue an MA in Social Policy and attend law school. Bekki hopes to create positive social and cultural change through work in law and policy.

Naeemah Charles was a student at SFSU where she served as Vice President of External Affairs for Associated Students at SFSU. As a student at San Francisco State University, she was a Political Science major and women and gender studies minor. Naeemah holds a great passion for progressive politics and is a strong advocate for the rights of womxn, people of color and higher education. In her spare time, Naeemah has also served as President of California College Democrats.

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Tara was the President of a local environmental club and active with the Alliance for Climate Education, Amnesty International, and a variety of other organizations. She has a broad area of interest, ranging from LGBTQ rights to Indian culture’s mainstream acceptance, and was dedicated to supporting them as she pursued her undergraduate degree. She worked on a published explanation and preservation of Hindu religious practices and on Oxford University Press’s latest Indian public health book with author Kanai Mukhjeree. Tara believes that when provided with proper awareness and tools, humanity as a whole can come together to confront the world’s problems together.

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Marlene worked to enhance the quality and sustainability of a computer lab in Quito, Edcuador to increase the computer technical skills and subsequently the economic viability of indigenous.

The purpose of Culmore Leadership Day is to motivate rising 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders into developing their leadership skills. They will also learn how to lead healthy lives through physical activity. Culmore is a neighborhood where youth are exposed to drugs and violence every day, so they don’t usually go outside to play. Culmore Leadership Day hopes to engage youth in activities they can do when they’re bored or with their friends. The youth will receive guidance and advice from student leaders as to how they can incorporate physical activity into their day, and be safe at the same time. This program is specifically for rising sixth graders because entering middle school is like entering a whole new world where they are more independent and many times students tend to get lost in the crowd.

SFS is a student organizing collective that aims to improve community-coordinated responses and services to sexual assault survivors on campus. SFS will create social media campaigns to elevate survivors’ experiences and advocate for fair and equitable sexual assault policies at the university level.

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2007 YP4 Fellows at Oberlin College hosted a conference to provide training and networking opportunities for young progressive leaders in Ohio, allowing them to develop shared strategies to mobilize young voters in 2008.

Experiencing the alienating feeling of being Asian American on campus, Esther ran and was elected as co-president of the Asian Student’s Association on campus. Esther and the ASA executive board are working to strategically foster an Asian/Asian American community that is engaged and explores their diverse identities and experiences through programs like Big Sib Little Sib and events like Are you sick of Gangnam Style? Let’s talk about Asians in the Media and Treat Yo Self to Mocktails and a Deep Talk on Beauty Standards. Esther’s blueprint includes a retreat for the Asian and Asian American community on her campus that will focus on building community engagement and connectedness and on developing her peers’ awareness and skills to advocate for their communities on campus and at home.

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Wadzanayi is a Zimbabwean student and graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from Hendrix College, Conway, AR. She was enrolled in the Downline Ministries Emerging Leaders Program in Memphis, TN. She is interested in the intersection between her Christian faith, social justice, and service particularly as it pertains to women and girls in vulnerable circumstances. She is also interested in cross-cultural dialogue.

Grace Chin has a commitment to climate activism that stems from a deep concern about the destructive effects of global climate change and the realization that there is a more sustainable way of living. As a fellow with the Alliance for Climate Education, she advocated for divestment from the fossil fuel industry, gathered petition signatures, met with state legislators, and spoke at events. As a co-president of her high school’s environmental club, she has worked on increasing environmental awareness among students and on reducing the school’s carbon footprint — specifically reducing the use of bottled water and energy consumption through school-wide campaigns, the installation of several water bottle filling stations, and collaboration with Next Step Living, a Boston-based home energy efficiency company.

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Rachel is a New Jersey native and was a student at Washington University in St. Louis where she pursued a major in American Culture Studies and minors in Anthropology and Music. Rachel seeks to understand the intersections of religion, women’s health, and gender equality in social, cultural, and political discourses in the United States as academic and personal interests. Applying this knowledge beyond the classroom through campus and community engagement, she strives to redefine how American politics and culture imagine and treat women in order to create a more just society.

Working within the Coalition on Gender and Sexuality (COGS) as the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum representative, as a member on the Diversity Concerns Committee, and within a Petition Drive Committee, Linh’s Blueprint is focused on a comprehensive push for a Gender and Sexuality Center at Hendrix College. The faculty advisor in the coalition presented her survey results alongside the show of student support that she had collected: 631 signatures (higher participation rate than in Student Senate elections) and 85 cards (offering reasons why students supported it). Although the Center may be a long time coming, as a result of Linh’s Blueprint the Hendrix administration has offered positive support and has asked the Development Office to begin looking for grants and donors this summer.

Brooke Cisneros was a student at the University of New Mexico. She was a part of Ready to Run NM. The non-partisan program meant to provide women with tools to run for elected office or become more involved in public service. Through her internship, she closely worked with the Southwest Hispanic Research Institute. She roles the at University’s Children.

As a member of the Black Executive Exchange Program, Alexandria looked to hone her business marketing skills into advocacy. She has worked as a marketing intern for the U.S. Department of Energy where she had the opportunity to lead an outreach initiative to promote the department

Economic Justice

As a member of the Greek Community and an advocate for the LGBTQ community at Arizona State University, Casey’s mission is to create a relationship of acceptance and understanding between the two communities. Driven by the homophobia she notices in the Greek Community, Casey believes that education and awareness will help her campus community progress.

Housing Hope: Reimaging Public Housing and the State of Homelessness in Maricopa County (Housing Hope) is an arts-based educational campaign that aims to address the dire issue of the lack of affordable housing in Maricopa County, Arizona. Maricopa County, home to Arizona’s greatest number of people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, lacks sufficient public housing according to AZ Central. Housing Hope is currently working on a documentary to raise awareness in Maricopa County, AZ around this issue, using individual narratives to highlight the need for greater public housing. Through this documentary and subsequent screenings, this group will create greater empathy for those currently experiencing homelessness, thus launching a media and policy campaign for greater protections for those experiencing homelessness.

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Lawrence developed a unique educational initiative specifically designed for nearly thirty at-risk urban youth in White Plains, NY. The approach incorporated traditional and non-traditional pedagogical models, including cultural synchronicity, portfolio development, spoken word/hip hop curriculums. Through the support of various community organizations, county officials, and the school board, Lawrence was able to provide these students an opportunity to learn through service and direct engagement. The overall goal of this initiative was to facilitate students’ successful transition to higher education, develop their sociopolitical awareness, and introduce and train them in concepts of community activism.

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Unnamed is a non-profit that aims to reduce the number of people incarcerated in Lake County jail by advocating for and facilitating alternative sentencing programs. Lake County, one of the northernmost counties in Illinois, houses its only jail in Waukegan, IL. This year, Lake County Jail’s average daily population (629 inmates) has grown alarmingly close to its 740 inmate capacity, causing a host of problems. Over incarcerating individuals (Mass incarceration) is a concern, even on the local level, for a number of reasons including the financial and social burdens it creates for individuals, their communities, and taxpayers at large. Unnamed seeks to prevent the imminent overcrowding of Lake County jail and work toward restorative justice practices.

Bottles 4 Justice seeks to empower, support, and uplift individuals and families affected by mass incarceration which is responsible for innumerable civil and human rights abuses in the United States. This project will utilize the Michigan Beverage Container Act of 1978 to raise money for organizations and campaigns committed to empowering and supporting folks affected by incarceration. The main goal of Bottles 4 Justice is to implement a system of collection within the greater Ann Arbor community where the mass amount of bottles from businesses, individual households, University of Michigan, and other community events/partners can be collected and deposited at local bottle return facilities in order to raise money for folks and families affected by mass incarceration. Another goal of this project is a commitment to recycling, something directly correlated to environmental justice and alleviating climate change.

Brienne Colston was a student at Lawrence University. She was heavily involved in student activism, being the vice-chairperson of the Lawrence University Committee on Diversity Affairs, founder and president of All Is One: Empowering Young Women of Color, and chapter president of her local sorority. Colston’s hometown is the South Bronx, and she is committed to the empowerment of young women of color in low-income neighborhoods around the United States. Brienne is a proud alumna of the Sadie Nash Leadership Program Summer Institute and a Posse Foundation scholar in Lawrence University Posse 5.

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With the desire to shape the local government through voting, organizing and civic participation, Joe hopes to increase the turnout rate of students during local, state and national elections. By reaching out to campus cultural groups he hopes to register 1500 students to vote. Surveying the various resources present Joe hopes to design and distribute accurate voting guides to the campus community. Lastly Joe hopes to turn out 1000 young people to the polls during Election Day.

YP4 Fellows at Florida A&M University and Florida State University partnered to work on issues of higher education in the state of Florida for their Blueprints for Social Justice. At the time the state was facing the implementation of a Block Tuition bill, which would implement significant budget cuts and could force graduation from state universities to occur within four years, thereby preventing students from pursuing work opportunities or internships during their studies. The Florida YP4 Fellows saw this as a crippling blow to public higher education in their state and mobilized to prevent the passage of this legislation. They kicked off their action plan with a Young People For training March 18-19th, 2005 to educate their community about and heighten awareness surrounding this proposed bill. Through trainings on advocacy techniques, Public education issues, the supreme court, and messaging tactics, the YP4 Fellows attempted to show how the Florida legislature has unfairly targeted higher education with disproportionate budget cuts and how these cuts may limit the accessibility of higher education in the state. The students coordinated with local media and partnered with progressive organizations on campus to garner support for their cause and to mobilize students to be a part of their efforts.

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Social Justice 101 (SJ101) is an intensive social justice education series of eight workshops that aim to introduce undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania to anti-oppression work. In prioritizing an anti-oppression and anti-racist lens, SJ101’s workshops focus primarily on personal identity development, understanding power, privilege, and oppression, and different approaches to social change. Through direct service, Social Justice 101 will provide a space for dialogue and community building. Each workshop of SJ101’s curriculum builds from the workshop prior, ensuring that students will leave learning how to engage their heads.

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Colleen is working on healthy food access and affordability in Richmond. Limited access to healthy food is associated with a host of health problems, including obesity. The problem of food deserts, particularly in Richmond, goes beyond the lack of a full-service, affordable grocery store in low-income communities. There is a critical gap in awareness of health and nutrition, the food cycle, the U.S. food industry, food preparation, and eating on a budget. Colleen’s Blueprint works toward a community in which the strategic growth and expansion of school and community garden projects provides food deserts throughout Richmond with healthy food access and teaches community members about food systems, health, and nutrition. She is also working to ensure there is youth involvement in these initiatives, empowering young people to shift the culture surrounding food and play a high-impact role in the sustainable development of their healthy community.

BLUEPRINT: Creative Resistance at George Washington University. George Washington University YP4 Fellows engaged in an incredibly successful event called YP4 Creative Resistance. They organized a forum that also served as the kick off event for Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Crashing the Gate book tour. YP4 Fellows were able to bring students, activists and community members from across Washington DC to the event and to engage in a lively discussion afterward. Adam Connor, a 2006 YP4 Fellow took this experience with him to his training as part of the Front Lines Leaders Academy, and continues to work to find new and innovative ways to engage people in the political process.

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Natalie Cook is the executive director of Atlanta Word Works, a non-profit organization that supports, guides and provides a safe space for young artists and writers to explore the complexities and challenges of life through oral literacy workshops and performance. They believe that the arts, as a way to develop critical thinking skills, social responsibility and creative problem solving, provide youth with the necessary tools to enter a world in need of fresh and innovative perspectives to build peace and create change. Atlanta Word Works addresses the dearth of constructive spaces for youth to express themselves creatively, particularly in the Atlanta region, using slam poetry to critically and effectively engage youth.

BLUEPRINT: Greening Ohio State University. YP4 Fellows wanted to see Ohio State University become an environmentally friendly, or green, campus. With 58,000 students, The Ohio State University is the largest University in the nation. YP4 Fellows worked with campus offices and several student groups to challenge the administration to go green. Fellows and their allies developed several commercials to be shown on the campus television station, stickers to place over light switches reminding students to turn off lights and buttons to wear in order to show support for a greener OSU. They also held a solar powered Green Fair featuring several environmental solutions. For example, Toyota brought hybrid vehicles the school could use in its fleet. To bring their message home to students, the Fellows and like minded students conducted a dorm raid in which they replaced all of the light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs. The students continued to push the administration to rely on green sources of power and to dedicate some of their energy savings to continued research on environmental sustainabilty.

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Loud and Queer is a coalition focusing on LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer/Questioning Intersex Asexual +) liberation in the context of health inequalities and a co-creation of knowledge amongst participants. The coalition aims to serve queer youth of color within the greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area, also known as the Valley of the Sun (which encompasses Maricopa and Pinal counties,) and their families (chosen and/or biological).

Regem was the External Representative of IDEAS (Improving Dreams, Equality, Access, and Success), the campus voice of undocumented immigrants at UCLA. With IDEAS, Regem was dedicated to spearheading legislative visits, phone banking, weeks of action, as well as assisting IDEAS’ END team to prevent the separation of immigrant families. He acted as a liaison for work at the campus, state, and national levels with other immigrant rights organizations demonstrating how coalition building is essential to organizing. He hopes to develop groups like IDEAS across the county to act as a continued force to effect policy changes that positively impact the immigrant community.

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The Central Valley Social Justice Pipeline is a long term leadership development program to prepare youth (18-35) to run for elected office or to work on electoral campaigns and get involved with local commissions and boards that affect public policy, in the Central Valley of California, from Sacramento County to Kern County. CVSJP will focus on educating youth on social justice issues, how they can be addressed, learn how our local government is structured in each respective community, and how we can get involved and implement policies to create sustainable institutional change. The program will provide additional advanced programming that will focus on getting interested individuals to learn the basics of running for electoral office or working on electoral campaigns as staff for candidates.

Ty is an activist and was the President of the Associated Students of Santa Monica College, where she advocated and worked towards college affordability and student success. Ty has a passion and a vision to make quality education free and accessible to everyone, as she believes that all social injustices are deeply rooted in education or the lack thereof. She advocated with the Student Senate for California Community Colleges and with local and state representatives to increase public education funding, student success and to close the achievement gap. She has authored and lobbied for many resolutions and initiatives and has founded the first community college Roosevelt Institute Chapter to encourage her peers to participate in the political process and join the progressive movement.

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Dr. Crystallee Crain has been an educator, small business owner, and advocate for human rights. Ms. Crain has over a decade of experience in leadership development, teaching, and capacity building for organizations that work to prevent violence. Crystallee owns and operates Peaceful Profits, a conscious book and merchandise company. She founded Prevention at the Intersections, where she trained violence prevention strategists across the country. In 2011 she was featured in TIME magazine in the PROTESTOR Person of the Year issue. Recently, Dr. Crain has developed a project called the Truth Telling Series where she aims to broaden the violence prevention agenda to include accountability for acts of state violence. Ms. Crain has organized using methods and inspiration from popular culture, community based research, and community healing strategies. She understands the connection between self, society and the impassioned spirit that fuels our connection to others and our desire to make change. She earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA. She holds a Master of Arts in Social Sciences (concentration in Sociology from Eastern Michigan University), and a Bachelors in Political Science from Northern Michigan University. In 2013 she received advanced training in Health and Human Rights in the School of Public Health at Harvard University. In 2011, Dr. Crain received the Norman Lear Alumni Award from Young People For. In the spring of 2014 she self-published the 1st edition of her first book – A People’s Primer: Exploration of Government & Social Change.

BLUEPRINT: Organizing to Save Affirmative Action in Michigan. In the November 2006 elections, a statewide ballot initiative called the “Michigan Civil Rights Initiative” aimed to ban affirmative action policies and outreach programs at all publicly funded state institutions including higher education institutions. The ballot initiative was sponsored by Ward Connerly.

YP4 Fellows at Florida A&M University and Florida State University partnered to work on issues of higher education in the state of Florida for their Blueprints for Social Justice. At the time the state was facing the implementation of a Block Tuition bill, which would implement significant budget cuts and could force graduation from state universities to occur within four years, thereby preventing students from pursuing work opportunities or internships during their studies. The Florida YP4 Fellows saw this as a crippling blow to public higher education in their state and mobilized to prevent the passage of this legislation. They kicked off their action plan with a Young People For training March 18-19th, 2005 to educate their community about and heighten awareness surrounding this proposed bill. Through trainings on advocacy techniques, Public education issues, the supreme court, and messaging tactics, the YP4 Fellows attempted to show how the Florida legislature has unfairly targeted higher education with disproportionate budget cuts and how these cuts may limit the accessibility of higher education in the state. The students coordinated with local media and partnered with progressive organizations on campus to garner support for their cause and to mobilize students to be a part of their efforts.

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“BLUEPRINT: Igniting Political Dialogue and Action at Howard University. Howard University YP4 Fellows created “”Project Voice

Jabari Crenshaw was born and raised in Raleigh, NC. Jabri‘s goals have been to help inner city communities starting with his hometown. Jabari started a program called “Family Evolution” which is a Mentor and Education program that helps inner city kids have access to resources and information that will help them succeed. It is also in place to bring the community together as well and to collectively unite and bring resources together and help provide for each other. Jabari comes from a larger family and that has shaped his lens for social justice. Coming from a household of 5 siblings and a single parent, Jabari’s upbringing was very humble. He learned how to adapt to his surroundings at a very young age. In poverty-stricken families and communities, there seemed to only be a few outlets for young black males. Street Life or Sports life, having an education and going to get a college degree wasn’t the main topic. Jabari worked very hard and received a full scholarship to Wingate University and after two years of playing football, Jabari had to leave his university due to poor decisions. From those decisions, Jabari would rebuild himself. Jabari wants to make sure that the bridge to get young black youth in inner cities on the right track gets built and stays strong. Jabari knows their story and what it takes to succeed. Jabari wants to pursue a degree in early childhood education.

Interrogating White Patriarchy (IWP) is a community-based education project that seeks to form a study group of self-identified white men, with a focus on self-identified young white men. IWP will engage in the personal work of interrogating our own internalized superiority over people of color (POC) and people who identify or present as feminine. This will be accomplished by engaging in a continuous process of unlearning the internalized superiority that comes from living in a patriarchal, male-dominated, society. IWP ultimately aims to support activist work led by people of color—especially femmes of color. Supporting femmes of color in particular is important as it helps ensure that IWP will not be inadvertently supporting POC-led activism that also perpetuates sexism. IWP will be based in Seattle and will function as a 10-week political education program over the summer, with one three hour meeting per week.

Ymani is the founder and creator of gracegoldandgold.com. She is a natural hairstylist, future expressive art therapist, and blogger. Ymani graduated with her degree in Creative Art Therapy from DePaul University in 2016. Developing a strong passion for helping people discover their dreams, she realized that cultivating and inspiring was her passion. Ymani uses her zeal for the visual performing arts to heal, direct, and love to help people reach their full potential.

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Taylor Crumpton is a Master’s of Social Work Candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. She is studying macro social work practice and working with Project HOME, a Philadelphia non-profit organization empowering individuals to break the cycle of poverty and homelessness through affordable housing, employment, health care, and education, in their Advocacy and Public Policy Department. During her time as a graduate student at Penn, she assists in the Gender and Sexuality Policy Lab which reconceptualizes policy work across public and private institutions to inform the lives of people experiencing marginalization in society and the housing economy–particularly LGBTQ youth who are most at risk.
Through her involvement with Young People For, she collaborated with a team of fellows on an amicus brief for the Whole Women’s v. Hellerstedt Supreme Court case, and was featured as a speaker for Center for Reproductive Rights Stop The Sham rally during the oral arguments of Whole Women’s. Her writing has been featured in Glamour, The Guardian and Teen Vogue.

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The Third Space Youth Institute is a collaboration between the Riverside County Office of Education, LA County Office of Education, and the USC Annenberg Center for Third Space Thinking. Instructors from USC Annenberg will work with 60 students participating in the counties’ Migrant Education Program during a four-day program. Students will be introduced to five core competencies or soft skills – adaptability, cultural competency, empathy, intellectual curiosity, and 360-degree thinking – that are critical to success in their academic, professional, and leadership journeys. Students who participate in the TSYI will enhance their mastery of essential soft skills, improve their writing and speaking capabilities, use of digital and social media, presentation and networking skills, professional etiquette development, college preparedness, and career development with the purpose of creating a personal brand that will propel participants into their academic and professional careers.

E.N.E. seeks to uphold the rights of low-income and vulnerable tenants, particularly when they are called into housing court for evictions. Our goals are to create a free resource guide for tenants to increase their legal literacy, and to ensure there is a right to legal counsel in all civil court matters.

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Lucero was an active and dedicated student at Phoenix College who obtained her Associate’s Degree and transferred to the University of Arizona. Lucero, also known as LuLu, is a proud Latina that has many dreams and turns them into reality by taking action! She has gained many leadership skills from participating in leadership workshops and conferences and wants to continue learning and to gain new experiences. LuLu hopes to inspire many young people through her life experiences and motivating them to take action in their dreams as well.

Stephanie was born and raised in Northern Arizona but has lived in Lawrence, Kansas. She is of the Navajo/Dine Tribe and attended Haskell Indian Nations University where she majored in American Indian Studies.

BLUEPRINT: Immigrant Rights Education at Trinity University. The YP4 Fellows at Trinity University engaged with the Administration to develop a semester-long program designed to educate the entire community about immigration and related social justice issues. The program launched in the spring 2007 semester and included: an ongoing debate series, an academic symposium, artistic and visual exhibits, advocacy trainings and smaller informational events.

For Refugees: The Welcome Home Project is a multi-year nationwide campaign that aims to help refugees in the United States find opportunities and services in their local community. With the rise of Islamophobia and xenophobic sentiments before and after the inauguration of Donald Trump, many refugees who are already in the United States have felt marginalized and minimized and they will fear looking for opportunities in the community out of fear of it being an unsafe space for them to exist. For Refugees: The Welcome Home Project will do the research for them and will work with refugees and their previous work experience to find services that accommodate to what they had in their homeland. For Refugees: The Welcome Home Project aims to create a multilingual website that has open access to different local businesses/chains those services.

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Envisioning a society where all people can truly love the skin they’re in, Lauren’s Blueprint for Social Justice focused on the media perpetuated ideas of body negativity. Lauren combated these issues by working to create safe spaces in her community where people could openly discuss the adverse effects of negative body images and further discuss ways to solve these issues.

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Dom is an accomplished political communications associate specializing in strategic communications and speechwriting.
His experience staffing political campaigns has given him the skills to be an effective grassroots organizer and engage community stakeholders with a keen sense of issues that are of greatest concern.
He cares deeply about progressive issues including racial and economic justice, immigration, environmental and food policy.

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Historically immigrants have been placed in a secondary citizenship category, often forgotten and left to fend for themselves. Recognizing this alarming trend and the lack of rights afforded to undocumented immigrants in the United States, Beatriz has used her Blueprint to create Above Status, an organization through which she is giving a voice and to youth undocumented immigrants who want to access college, obtain a driver license, be reunited with their families, and more. Above Status has held multiple rallies and events around Florida and continues to grow.

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Advocating on behalf of undocumented citizens in Mississippi, Sara used her Blueprint to begin an organization called Youth Organizers United that strives to achieve equal access to higher education, humane laws, cultural awareness and protection of human rights for all people. Y.O.U. focuses on community development and grassroots organizing as it works to promote policy changes and justice in the local, state and national arenas (with initial concentration on immigration reform in Mississippi). Sara believes that this work is fundamental to the progressive movement because it can help end the cycle of poverty and oppression faced by many immigrant families

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Through a series of public forum discussions, Timothy Den Herder-Thomas opened up a dialogue on campus concerning major concepts on global citizenship, including: the idea of collective responsibility; confronting issues of race, class, gender, purpose; and, the impact of student consumption and lifestyle on their larger community. Students, faculty, and staff were further engaged in this dialogue through the campus newspaper in various articles reflecting on these issues. It was Timothy’s hope that this dialogue would foster more student, and a sense of common purpose and shared vision amongst the student body.

Voice is an online platform that will change the methods used to garner activism in the age of social networking. As a platform that was created to provide contemporary activists with a platform to turn digital moments into movements, Voice has identified three fundamental issues that have prevented current social media sites from meeting the needs of contemporary social media activists: a lack of data protection, the prioritization of profit, and the inability or unwillingness to transform their platforms to cater more to the sensitive content that tends to permeate social justice movements. By offering a solution to these key issues, Voice is offering an avenue for activism to further evolve with the growing prominence of social media.

Denny’s Blueprint, Camp I Have a Dream, serve youth of the Dheisha and Jalazone refugee camps, near Bethlehem, Palenstine and Ramallah, Palestine (respectively), with a week of seminars and workshops that teach alternative methods of activism, civic engagement, and non-violent resistance. The programs are targeted towards 10-16 year olds, a demographic that is out of school for the summer, largely unemployable, living in their most formative years, and the leaders of tomorrow. The summer camps combine a series of workshops ranging from leadership in sports led by Peace Players International and Basketball PAL, to online activism led by facilitators and bloggers from Soliya Connect, to college prep seminars by counselors from Bir Zeit University, to self-expression through art and photography, to demos in non-violence protest.

BLUEPRINT: Immigrant Rights Education at Trinity University. The YP4 Fellows at Trinity University engaged with the Administration to develop a semester-long program designed to educate the entire community about immigration and related social justice issues. The program launched in the spring 2007 semester and included: an ongoing debate series, an academic symposium, artistic and visual exhibits, advocacy trainings and smaller informational events.

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Nathan attended St. Olaf College. While attending he led various student groups such as the International Student Organization and was involved in programs against racial and religious identity-based discrimination on campus.
While focusing on campus activities is important to Nathan, he continues to strive for a career after college in social justice and specifically would be involved in reconciliatory work.

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From Miami to Los Angeles, Mundy observed a pressing problem visible among people in low-income areas, but particularly among immigrant families and other Latinx families with language barriers. These populations are especially prone to predatory pricing, benefits packages with severe price hikes after “trial” periods, and exceptions in contract policies that use jargon to confuse the consumer. Tech companies take advantage of complicated contract language, enabling them to take advantage of individuals with low monetary freedom, little understanding of technical language, along with contracts only being offered in English which might not be their primary language in the first place. This presents an issue of equity; we need to come up with unique ways to ensure that communities of color are not victims to these tactics, which only perpetuate the cycle of poverty, by increasing families’ tech literacy

For her Blueprint, Ashley founded TogetHER, a girls empowerment and leadership group. The mission of TogetHER is to serve at-risk, low-income girls of color in inner-city communities. TogetHER incorporates its five core values into its programming: (1) personal empowerment- believing in HERself and HER abilities leading to self-motivation; (2) education- moving on past a K-12 education toward college and beyond; (3) community service- getting involved in various communities to lend a helping hand and give back; (4) leadership- stepping up and taking roles that demonstrate strategic decision-making while pushing boundaries to make room for others to follow; (5) developing life & decision-making skills- these skills will be essential for all TogetHER participants to be quick on HER toes, enabling HER to make choices that will further HER goals! Ashley successfully hosted TogetHER’s first annual Leadership and Empowerment Summit with over 40 participants, teachers, volunteers, and staff.

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Aditi Dinakar attended Creighton University, studied Economics, Health Administration, and Policy, with a minor in Public Policy. She was active in Creighton Students Union and enjoys writing legislation to improve the campus in student government. Aditi was also a programming intern for the Lieben Center for Women, the school’s women center. She is passionate about women’s representation, equal pay, cyberbullying legislation, and other social justice issues. In the future, Aditi would like to work at a non-profit or a public policy consulting firm, actively involved with social justice.

The Howard University YP4 Fellows action plan was focused on raising consciousness around issues of affirmative action and civil rights. These YP4 Fellows focused their awareness-raising efforts on the impact that judicial nominations may have on these policies. The Fellows, in conjunction with Young People For, held their first training on April 6th, 2005, which included a speaker’s panel on these issues. In addition, they teamed up with People for the American Way Foundation to hold a Fillibusterathon on April 8th, 2005 where Howard students spoke in favor of the Fillibuster for six hours.

The Vision Project aims to create a sense of community amongst black and brown teenage girls by through creating and practicing storytelling, and creating and implementing visions through digital platforms. The goal is also to educate school faculty on the need and impact of social-emotional learning.

BLUEPRINT: The Goodfight – Speaking Truth to Power. YP4 Fellows at Universitiy of Minnesota were inspired by how Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas book Crashing the Gate used the power of the internet to affect social change. They worked on building, branding and publicizing a University of Minnesota- wide online forum called “”The Goodfight – Speaking Truth to Power.”””

The T.E.A. Collective is a container that aims to offer transformative and restorative justice services and resources in local communities. The T.E.A. Collective seeks to dismantle the carcel state and its vicious cycle of harm by becoming a hub of transformation, learning and abolishing these systems.

Options for Long Beach will address viable ways to assist the residents of Long Beach with options on how to stay in their homes. This includes giving the option to vote for citywide rent control and pressuring City Council to pass a ban on no fault evictions and put a tenant relocation ordinance in place.

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BLAZE Health Podcast aims to uplift Black women and girls by creating intentional space for them to have dialogue about mental health, wellness, self-love, and access to Black health professionals. We will cultivate a new way for our communities deal with mental health, wellness, and negative life situations.

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Through her Blueprint, Isabela worked to make Florida State a plastic water bottle-free campus. She advocated for the termination of the campus’ contract with Coca-Cola and worked to replace vending machines on campus with water filling stations for reusable water bottles. In addition to her work to change campus policies and practices, she launched an ambitious awareness campaign to increase student knowledge of conservation efforts.

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Tanisha Douglas, with the support of Center for Social Justice and Center for Multicultural Equality and Access, developed a daylong leadership retreat providing symposiums for student leaders to discuss vision creation and the why social justice? question. It also provided groups skill-building opportunities, including sessions such as: Introduction to DC, Privilege and Community Awareness, Vision Development, and Goal Setting, as well four Know How workshops (Media Relations, Youth Development and Mentoring Strategies, Literacy Tutoring Strategies, and Georgetown Student Leader Training). Additionally, this project created training prototypes and a professional network for future trainings. Twenty-five student leaders ultimately participated in the symposium. The Center for Social Justice Advisory Board was so impressed by the project’s impact and outcomes that it committed to holding the leadership symposium again in the fall of 2008.

Natalie Douglas is a graduate from the University of North Carolina- Charlotte and knows what it’s like to live without enough to eat. There is a growing number of people who are not able to feed themselves and their families. Natalie is developing a workshop to educate young people, students, and community members about the effects of food insecurity. She will be working with local activists, farmers markets, and educators to give information about how to combat food insecurity in the communities that need it the most. Access to healthy food is a basic human right but unfortunately for many people, food scarcity is their reality. This project aims to collect food for those who attend the workshops and provide opportunities to learn how to budget, buy, and cook healthy sustainable food in an effort to take care of themselves.

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Zach built a campus coalition at Florida State University to address the issue of creating a more inclusive non-discrimination policies within the school, as well as a broad range of other issues to improve the status of LGBTQ students on campus. The Coalition for an Equitable Community consisted of four member organizations (Pride Student Union, the Institute for Liberal Studies, College Democrats, and The F Word, a feminist organization) and a handful of very dedicated individuals. A coalition of other campus and community groups also joined the efforts, culminating in an accountability session that was held with the Vice President of Student Affairs to discuss his demands for a more inclusive non-discrimination policy.

Ashley Arp and Chris Duarte, 2008 YP4 Fellows at NAU – Flagstaff, worked to create a more inclusive and diverse campus and minimize the risks of discrimination and hate crimes. They did so by implementing an education program surrounding Diversity and Allyship on campus. The program required administration, staff, professors and students receive a wide array of educational resources relating to diversity, especially LGBT issues, and made workbooks and other resources available to any individual on campus. They created a team that would educate the community through campus-wide forums, speeches, and workshops. They also worked to have NAU implement an anti-discrimination policy that includes Gender Identity and Expression.

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For her Blueprint project, Tamara spearheaded the behind-the-scenes effort to get more student organizations involved in student government (USG) elections. She conducted interviews for candidates with progressive organizations and thereafter encouraged endorsements from organizations. The endorsements had a 100% success rate and voter turnout increased by over 10% in both senator and executive USG elections. Tamara will implement forums in the fall so that those elected can be held accountable by their endorsers and will continue to work in the Progressive Voter Coalition (PVC) every spring over multiple election periods.

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BLUEPRINT: Immigrant Rights at Carlton College. The Carleton YP4 Fellows wanted to inform their campus about immigrants rights issues, encourage people to think about the issue in a progressive way, and build an alliance between the campus and local Northfield community. To do so, the Carleton YP4 Fellows brought several groups together to host an informational panel featuring several faculty members knowledgeable about the issue of immigration. Community members were also invited and encouraged to attend. The debate was lively and productive. The Fellows designed and distributed bumper stickers at the event designed to show their support for immigrants rights. There are now many cars driving around Northfield with their bumpers declaring Si Se Puede!

For her Blueprint, Casey Anne developed an annual High School Gay-Straight Alliance Conference, to be run and organized by students of the Westfield State University Queer Straight Alliance. The goal of the conference is to provide networking for the high school students, introduce them to the university, and to provide training and workshops about LGBTQ and Ally issues. This year’s conference was small but she hopes it will grow next year, with more student involvement. The students in attendance not only had a good time but they learned and networked among themselves and with the University Students.

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Project THIS is a multi-year school-wide project intending to bring higher education application advising to local Philadelphia public high school seniors who have been directly impacted by the incarceration of a parent. Students who have been impacted by the incarceration of a close family member face many barriers to entry for the college application process, one being a lack of support system or guidance for the process. Project THIS seeks to address this barrier by providing hands-on support and guidance for the college application process, addressing steps to be taken for the Common Application, essay writing, financial aid, scholarships, etc. This will look like providing training and presentations to students, as well as one-on-one support. Project THIS will help broaden higher education accessible to students who are often overlooked in the push towards college enrollment and achievement.

Vanessa is developing curriculum with the goal of getting young activists to think intersectionally about ways in which systems of oppression work together to marginalize specific communities and why it is imperative that we think about reproductive justice in a way that deconstructs normative institutions to ensure that all bodies, identities, and experiences are accounted for in the movement. We will be working with activists from different colleges and universities from around the country to build the bridge between understanding the benefits to “queering” reproductive justice issues and how this concept can be combined with valuable skill building techniques for on-campus as well as community activism in order to give students the tools they need to achieve tangible outcomes after the leaving the conference and returning to their communities. Vanessa will debut her curriculum at the Choice USA Reproductive Justice Leadership Institute in Long Beach in April.

Corey Dutton is a first-generation college student at the University of Louisville, where she studied History and Criminal Justice with a minor in French. She has been involved with her school’s Honor’s Student Council where she has worked to increase diversity and inclusion on Louisville’s campus as well as raise awareness about social justice issues on campus and around Louisville. She worked with Kentucky Refugee Ministries as a Rise-Up mentor where she helped young refugees find a path to college. As well as being very passionate about refugee issues and America’s role in global relations, Corey found her biggest passion in issues facing the Native American communities of the United States. She hopes to shape policy affecting the criminal justice system on reservations as well as advocate for Native American education across the country.

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Julia was the Vice Chair of the Student Senate and President of the Pittsburgh Student Government Council. She has also been a first-year women’s mentor. In these roles, she worked to improve campus policies on sexual assault and its related violence and was trained to work with survivors. She has worked to change campus culture by working with students to use arts and technology to enhance educational initiatives

“BLUEPRINT: Buildling the “”Not in Our Town”” Movement. Columbia College YP4 Fellows worked on the production crew of the PBS documentary of the “”Not in Our Town”” movement. “”Not in Our Town”” is a national movement that encourages community response to hate crimes. The project combined PBS broadcast

Through his Blueprint, Eduardo created a non-profit organization that provided leadership education within his community with a curriculum targeted towards developing local youth. It provided basic personal, organizational, community, social, and responsible leadership skills to address the problems of student apathy, lack of civic participation, and lack of social awareness.

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Jonel’s vision for the community is to combat the school to prison pipeline by building power among youth not reached through mentorship programs and Fellowships. She has started a youth organizing program in Gainesville where she teaches youth how to lobby and how to bring about change through building collective power. Eventually, she wants these powerful youth to work on combating the school to prison pipeline, particularly the zero tolerance programs being pushed in Florida which instill in youth at an early age the idea that they are criminals.

Victoria is a courageous individual who is passionate about establishing real change in all of the communities of which she belongs. She studied Sociology and African-American studies. Additionally, Victoria devoted much of her energy to her elected positions as a member of Georgetown University’s Provost’s Committee on Diversity, a student-faculty committee, and as an executive board member of Georgetown’s NAACP chapter. She also loves activism, Black Feminism, music, popular culture, laughing and most importantly her family. Although she aspires to attend law school, Victoria is not certain of what her career trajectory will be. Nonetheless, she plans to always stay true to the people and to herself.

The Swordsmen Promise is a program that aims to provide resources for first-generation college students at Saint Paul High School by teaching students about the financial aid process, internships, major selection, types of institutions, and other tools needed to prepare for education after high school.

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Simeon Tally, Emily Ellis, and Kyle Yurkovich built a more cohesive progressive movement on campus by running a campaign to get their campus’ administration to buy 100% recycled paper.

THE RED PRINT is a new guidebook that ensures minority high school students have equal access to resources that they may have been deprived of in the past. The guide provides resources such as job openings, college prep programs, vocational training, internships, scholarships, and more.

Makela Elvy was an environmental geoscience major at DePauw University, a Bonner Scholar who committed 280 hours of service annually, a Posse scholar and a DePauw Community Service coordinator. As a coordinator, she was dedicated to creating opportunities for students to become more active in the local community and aimed to increase consciousness about issues being faced by not only the student body but also within the community.

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Rubi was a Marketing and Management student at the Robins School of Business of the University of Richmond. She enjoys participating in the management of cultural organizations and advocating for social change. She was the co-founder and president of the group Ritmo Latino which promoted cultural awareness through dance. Rubi served as a student advisor with the Peer, Advisors and Mentors program at the University. She is a co-founder and organizer of the Siler City Immigrant Rights Team. Through the Fellowship Rubi hopes to give a stronger voice to the Hispanic-Latino community in her town, and throughout the nation.

“History Beyond Colonization” (H.B.C.) is a year-long program for high school-aged Latin-American students to become cultural anthropologists, critical thinkers, and informed students. H.B.C. aims to rewrite the current, Eurocentric narrative of Latin American history present in Minnesota’s educational discourse by providing a decolonized curriculum of Latin America which 1) explores the rich pre-colonial history of Latin America, 2) investigates the colonial systematic takeover, and 3) analyzes how the past colonial structures are present in modern-day Latin America. H.B.C. supplements the missing pieces of Latin American history by providing a curriculum that expands outside the context of the United States and brings to light the unspoken history of Latin America as a blend of Indigenous, European, and African people. It will incorporate a foundational analysis of institutional oppression, educational justice, and ancestral revival.

“BLUEPRINT: Critical Queer Perspectives on Prison Abolition. Jenny is interested in the intersections of gender, sexuality, criminalization, and race. For her Blueprint, she organized a series of events at her college, one of which was a panel with three phenomenal speakers, titled Who are the Violent Ones? Critical Queer Perspectives on Prison Abolition.”” This panel invited the community to discuss the ways that gender and sexual deviance are criminalized in our society

“BLUEPRINT: Critical Queer Perspectives on Prison Abolition. Jenny is interested in the intersections of gender, sexuality, criminalization, and race. For her Blueprint, she organized a series of events at her college, one of which was a panel with three phenomenal speakers, titled Who are the Violent Ones? Critical Queer Perspectives on Prison Abolition.”” This panel invited the community to discuss the ways that gender and sexual deviance are criminalized in our society

Born in California and raised in Kansas, Leo lived in both a deeply blue state and a deeply red state. Leo attended Yale with interests in a wide range of subjects including international relations, government, foreign languages, and neuroscience. He says, “We have to learn how to listen more and speak less. When we engage in dialogue, we create solutions that satisfy all parties. Today, instead of listening, we tend to be stubborn in our ideologies and reject any sort of opposition before even considering it. Listening is the silver bullet to solving all conflicts whether they’re on a local, national, or international level.” He enjoys catching up on the latest events happening worldwide and traveling.

Beyond the Entry-level: Building Power for People of Color through Management Positions focuses on the disenfranchisement and lack of power that people of color experience in New Haven as the Yale community continues to grow and expand its sphere of influence. It plans to accomplish this by increasing the number of people of color in managerial positions in Yale Dining at Yale University. In the city of New Haven, the majority of residents are either Black, Hispanic, or members of what is otherwise known as underrepresented groups. And although Yale is the city’s major and biggest employer, most of its employees are white and do not reflect the demographics of the community that it inhabits.

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Haitian Immigrant Bail Assistance Project (HIBAP) is a social justice project that was formed at the realization of the lack of resources available to Haitian immigrants in the United States. HIBAP was founded in 2017 in San Francisco, California, by a group of advocates with immigrant ties. HIBAP is dedicated and committed to raising awareness about Haitian immigrants’ experience in the U.S. They hope to address the struggles of Haitian and Black Immigrants, who are also less represented and whose voices are often less heard in the field of immigrant advocacy work. The Mission of HIBAP is to provide means to help immigrants fight for fundamental rights. HIBAP wants justice and fairness in the immigration system, so that immigrants facing deportation/removal and certain grounds for exclusion may have access to representation and a fair trial.

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The Cornell University YP4 Fellows worked to cultivate a Progressive Think Tank on their campus. In an effort to build this think tank, they established the Progressive Student Union. Following the YP4 National Summit, these Fellows mobilized immediately to hold a progressive student fair on campus, which attracted over 100 students and allowed all the progressive organizations on campus to have tables and distribute their literature and information on their actions to members of the student body. They also worked to establish an email listserv for progressively minded students on campus to be connected through one channel. The Fellows planned to use their budding network of progressive activism on campus to stand behind them as they produce policy papers and strategies to coordinate the movement on campus. Their first creative effort involved the publication of a Guide to Getting Active, which they distributed widely on campus.

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Karim was a student at The George Washington University, majoring in International Affairs with a concentration in Conflict Resolution. In Fall 2014, he studied comparative human rights in Chile, Jordan, and Nepal, where he got the opportunity to meet with civil society leaders who were finding local solutions to pressing challenges. Farishta is a John F. Kennedy School of Government Public Policy and Leadership Conference Fellow and has worked at the Alliance for Peacebuilding to join other innovative Peacebuilders with their projects. Karim is also the founder of the youth-led Global Issues Summit in Sugar Land, Texas.

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Jasmine has served as the Civic Media Coordinator at the Marian Cheek Jackson Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and been a youth mentor with Sacrificial Poets. She mentored for a youth radio show that aired every month and taught workshops on spoken word, writing, and public speaking skills. Jasmine enjoys writing, spoken word, performing, DJ’ing on the radio, and being a youth activist. Through the Fellowship, she hopes to gain more skills to take back to her community and students.

While California has long been at the forefront of the Immigrant Rights Movement, most of the activities and advocacy efforts regarding this issue have taken place in the southern region of the state. Uriel’s Blueprint sought to bring more immigrant justice work to the northern region of California by creating stronger ties among the immigrant rights student groups located in the Bay Area in order to help their campus constituencies and the communities that surround them be mroe effective in their advocacy and organizing work.

The T.E.A. Collective is a container that aims to offer transformative and restorative justice services and resources in local communities. The T.E.A. Collective seeks to dismantle the carcel state and its vicious cycle of harm by becoming a hub of transformation, learning and abolishing these systems.

Adam created a publication website that was updated daily in order to build more cohesion, collaboration, and power within his campus’ progressive groups. The website, Georgetownprogressive.com, had multimedia forums, interactive capability, and interesting features that integratef humor, culture, politics, and policy. Progressive Coalition partners held regular meetings, developed their own content, promoted the publication to a broader college readership nationwide, and produced a guide on how to unite movement and political progressives, helping to build leadership capacity across sectors.

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Youth Against Dating Abuse (YADA) aims to prevent, educate, and support survivors of dating abuse in high school and college aged relationships. While almost 1 in 3 teens find themselves in some form of an abusive relationship , a very minimal amount of those who have been abused recognize the signs of abuse, even in their own situation. YADA wants to show young survivors that their experience matters, and affirm that our work is going prevent and educate further cases of dating abuse. YADA is committed to end dating violence and abuse through a series of on-campus support groups and workshops as well as presentations and educational materials to distribute in high school classrooms in the Boston region to show that dating violence is a real and immediate threat to the health and safety of students.

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Rachel realigned her student government association to collaborate with students and student groups on her campus. Her vision of transparency with her campus’ administrators and students led to more efficient practices and a more representative system for the students of Barnard.

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Gustavo Figueroa studied at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. His focus of study involved a double major in Biology and Environmental Studies. He was involved in social justice work and movements at Lawrence University including co-founding Alainza, which was a Latin@ organization aimed to provide support and community for leadership Latin@ students, and he was involved with the Lawrence Enhancing Diversity in the Sciences (L.E.D.S.), where he helped direct a workshop on ally ship and intersectionality. Figueroa is also interested in exploring environmental justice and the connections it has with global politics, as well as promoting more ethnic inclusion in the science classes.

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2007 Stanford University Fellows worked with their campus administration to craft an institution-wide commitment to reduce emissions and become a leader in addressing climate change.

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BLOOM is a web app that offers free intermediate-level Indigenous language learning courses that are developed in collaboration with Native Nations, international governments, and linguistic communities. Our mission is to provide accessible, foundational Indigenous language education that empowers the next generation of global speakers and leaders; with the vision being to reverse both Indigenous language loss and its negative social and political impacts all while offering youth a sense of pride, cultural knowledge, and a deeper connection to their heritage via language (Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures, 2005). BLOOM will focus on launching our beta in May 2018.

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“BLUEPRINT: Organizing to Save Affirmative Action in Michigan. In the November 2006 elections, a statewide ballot initiative called the “”Michigan Civil Rights Initiative”” aimed to ban affirmative action policies and outreach programs at all publicly funded state institutions including higher education institutions. The ballot initiative was sponsored by Ward Connerly

#SinglePayerAndNothingLess is designed to ensure healthcare as a right according to the law of New York State. It plans to use a people powered campaign to enact change in the state of New York to create a single-payer, universal healthcare system and ensure the wealthiest individuals pay their fair share.

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Little Free Library will bring Little Free Libraries to low income neighborhoods in Chicago. The Little Free Library makes libraries fun, cute, and accessible to everyone while also engaging and making the community more appealing.

Cintia is an Oakland native and she studied Environmental Studies at University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC). Her social justice experiences range from art to event planning. She is passionate about community organizing around education, food justice, queer people of color, and the environment. She was a member of Familia X, an organization that focused on creating a safe space for queer Latin students at UCSC. Although Cintia does not yet have set plans for her future in community activism, she knows that she will give back to her community in Oakland.

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The Fellows at American University created the DC Consortium. Similar to a think tank in structure, DC Consortium allowed both activism and policy to be produced and publicized in the shcool community. The goals of the DC Consortium were fivefold: to publish and promote progressive and reliable policy research; give university students the resources and network they needed to investigate policy issues that interested them; meet professionals working on the front-line of said policy research; incubate the dynamic ideas and discussions put forth by students; and to ensure youth’s voices were heard and acknowledged by international and domestic policymakers at all levels of governance.

Brianna Huth and Angie Follina worked to increase awareness about sexual violence in their community by hosting a successful V-Day event and raising funds for a training program at their local YWCA for Cleveland State students, which taught participants on how to effectively counsel victims of sexual violence.

Sarah is a nonfictionist who has lived in Georgia where she attended Georgia Southern University. She wrote about Southern culture, queer identity, Latina identity, and the strange little place where they all intersect. Her work has appeared in The Q Review, Lavender Review, and Diverse Voices Quarterly. Sarah was a 2012 Lambda Literary fellow, a correspondent for Choice USA, and a contributing editor for Autostraddle. She was named the winner of Seekardia’s 2012 poetry contest.

Sarah Fonseca is using her Blueprint to create a positive progressive publication at Georgia Southern University. The Pedestrium aims to raise the bar throughout campus media by moving beyond the normal—often toxic— dialogues surrounding racial, sexual, and gender minorities, by being mindful of staff diversity/accessibility, and by producing issues that serve as motivators and self-care resources for students interested in becoming involved in Georgia Southern University’s social justice community. As a Writing and Linguistic major and a Lambda Literary Fellow, Sarah is excited to explore the overlap between storytelling and activism within a literary publication. The Pedestrium’s first publication was released in March 2014.

Colleen Fonseca has worked as a Public Information Officer for the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department in the Division of External and Community Affairs. In this position, she developed and implemented media, communications, and public relations strategies to advance initiatives and policies to deter youth crime and expand advocacy for re-entry programming. Impassioned to break down structural inequalities that often lead to criminal activity, Colleen has served as a Mayoral Fellow for the previous Mayor of Providence, at the Rhode Island Statehouse as a Senate Policy Intern, Massachusetts Statehouse, Rhode Island Office of the Child Advocate working on the issue of domestic minor sex trafficking and much more. In addition, Colleen was the youngest woman to serve in the Action for Boston Community Development: Mattapan Advisory Board. She also served as the Public Policy Director for Equality for HER, a women’s empowerment organization that seeks to create an intersectional feminist space. A graduate of St. John’s University and Bostonian Colleen hopes to continue to work within her own community to uplift the quality of life for all citizens.

Tiffany, a Chicago native, was a Human and Social Development and Economics double major with a minor in Health Sector Management and Policy at the University of Miami. In addition to her involvement in student organizations, Tiffany served as a student assistant and resident assistant on campus. Through interactive coursework, she remained active in the university community and the Miami community as a whole.

She was involved with research that explored health disparities within minority populations. In the summer of 2012, Tiffany served as an intern with a federally qualified health center in Detroit where she worked to increase patient satisfaction. She has a passion for equal access to quality healthcare and representative health education materials. Having achieved multiple semesters on the President and Provost’s Honor Rolls, she continues to demonstrate the importance of student involvement, strong academics, and a passion for the community.

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Leah Ford is a short, queer, anti-racist feminist who loves cats. They studied sociology and gender and sexuality studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. Leah has served as co-president of their college’s Voices for Planned Parenthood chapter and co-coordinator of the service-based Queer Advocacy group. Leah interned with their local Planned Parenthood affiliate in the summer and fall of 2014 as a campus organizer against the anti-choice Tennessee Amendment 1.

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BLUEPRINT: Consciousness Raising at Georgetown University. Georgetown YP4 Fellows brought a progressive training to campus to inspire the masses to become more active politically. At the conference, participants learned about issues in the LGBTQ community, womens rights, and voters rights. The Fellows training was held in September and was an incredible success, they trained close to 100 active and engaged students.

Samara Foster was an undergraduate at Boston College and has a passion for social change, love, and equality. She majored in Sociology and minored in African and African Diaspora Studies and Women and Gender studies. She was actively involved on her campus and was respectfully considered a student leader in promoting campus diversity. She was on the e-board of the Black History Month Committee, President of the NAACP, and the chair and creator of on-campus inclusive initiatives, and much more. She is dedicated to social awareness and community building. She also conducted research in Jamaica where she interviewed inhabitants of St. Elizabeth with the intention of contributing to the field of Sociology with her findings.

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The Second Chance Operative (S.C.O) is an intended summer program that
aims to help troubled youth that is either at-risk or fall dangerously close
to the school-to-prison pipeline model. In the state of Virginia, the school-to-prison pipeline is a huge factor especially in low-income areas that are home to a majority of children of color. Children in these areas are more likely to be “labeled” by a flag system. The Second Chance Operative blueprint intends to help mentor, support, and guide children flagged by the school by teaching them skills and engaging with them through a summer interactive program led by Andrew Frazier.

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In-house Conversations is a nonprofit digital learning platform and social justice initiative dedicated to the issue of civic engagement and socioeconomic issues. The learning platform seeks to reach out to minority educators to offer them a platform to host their content to community stakeholders, interest groups, and low-income communities. The platform would also seek to do on the field outreach efforts towards local communities of color to reinforce both the mission and content of In-house Conversations.

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Griselda was a student at Paradise Valley Community College. She was a mentor and one of the program coordinators at Manzana Foundation a non-profit organization. Griselda was involved in various political campaigns and was responsible for communications in her department at Manzana Foundation. Her involvements helped her reach her goal of majoring in psychology and political science. She plans on attending law school in the future. She hopes to help her community overcome immigration and educational attainment issues.

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Flor was a social work major at Salem State University. Her past experience included working as an Academic Mentor for freshmen and sophomores at Salem State University. She has a passion for helping college students succeed academically. She is looking forward to starting field work at Healing Abuse Working for Change (HAWC) and helping survivors of violence empower themselves. She loves to cook, bake and help others.

Pop culture’s misrepresentation, lack of representation, and generally oppressive treatment of women, queer people, people of color, and other marginalized groups of folks led to the creation of Kaitlin’s Blueprint Grrrls Night, a web series focused on feminist, queer progressive issues. Kaitlin believes that popular media is a great opportunity to meet people where they’re at and have a teaching moment. People already watch videos online, why not use this to show them accurate representation of marginalized groups as whole people and to get them interested in the progressive movement?

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Roots & Raíces provides a communications platform primarily for immigrants and for allies to be represented in the arts in Baltimore City by giving them agency to perform, promote, and celebrate their artistic contributions to the United States. The organizers of the series of events that will take place this upcoming year consist of a group of Baltimore/DC-based activists, artists, and musicians. The organization emerged from the experience of creating a Latinx Art and Culture Festival in 2017 focused on providing a platform for Latinx artists in Baltimore to be represented in the arts. It developed into an organization that now aims to provide a platform for all immigrants in Baltimore to be represented. Roots & Raíces is unique in the sense that its purpose is beyond just being an arts & entertainment platform as a festival but rather using the arts to inspire civic action specifically among the young population of artists in Baltimore.

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2007 Howard University Fellows hosted the first annual Loving Our City, Loving Ourselves block party and health fair. Approximately 400 people participated from Howard and the DC Pleasant Plains community, over 100 of which were tested for HIV/AIDS and participated in the community beautification project. The party included music provided by a DJ, a poetry slam, environmentally conscious arts and crafts for children, and organizational booths. Many organizations were featured in the Block Party, including Campus Climate Challenge and the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative. To ensure the sustainability of these efforts, advocacy and accountability training sessions were held among the participating organizations to follow up on the environmental and health issues.

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Erin Gaddis was a communication specialist major from Baylor University with an interest in Public Affairs and Domestic Policy. She has studied and presented on the topic of cultural competency and has a vested interest in the social justice movement.

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BLUEPRINT: The Goodfight – Speaking Truth to Power. YP4 Fellows at Universitiy of Minnesota were inspired by how Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas book Crashing the Gate used the power of the internet to affect social change. They worked on building, branding and publicizing a University of Minnesota- wide online forum called “The Goodfight – Speaking Truth to Power.”

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Tina worked to establish a university program to help youth who were aging out of foster care and transitioning into adulthood. The proposed program, Orquidea Fostering Scholars, worked to number of foster youth who attended higher education; develop life, social, and work skills necessary to successfully find a job; and increase the number of housing options for former foster youth.

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Santiago Quintana was the president of the Outdoor Environmental Club and a member of the Sexuality and Gender Alliance at Beloit College, WI. He is dedicated to questioning the opposition of activism and academia in both environmental and queer groups. He also hopes to create connections through the engagement of theories in action and of action in theories, as well as the inevitable theoretical aspect of movements, and the inevitable impact of theory.

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Gabe Gardiner uses they, them and theirs pronouns. They attended the University of Oregon, where they’ve were given many opportunities to do social justice work and organize. They got their grounding through the Oregon Student Association (OSA), a statewide student advocacy nonprofit that fought for student’s voices on a statewide level. With this organization, they participated in voter registration, tuition freeze campaigns, cultural competency for public higher education institutions and so much more. They also worked with their student government as well as the United State Student Association to work for students on a campus-wide, state and federal level.

The Cornell University YP4 Fellows worked to cultivate a Progressive Think Tank on their campus. In an effort to build this think tank, they established the Progressive Student Union. Following the YP4 National Summit, these Fellows mobilized immediately to hold a progressive student fair on campus, which attracted over 100 students and allowed all the progressive organizations on campus to have tables and distribute their literature and information on their actions to members of the student body. They also worked to establish an email listserv for progressively minded students on campus to be connected through one channel. The Fellows planned to use their budding network of progressive activism on campus to stand behind them as they produce policy papers and strategies to coordinate the movement on campus. Their first creative effort involved the publication of a Guide to Getting Active, which they distributed widely on campus.

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Educational Equality 4 All is a mobile app where students of color can access to additional academic resources and opportunities. Marvell’s end goal for the mobile app is for students to succeed and be prosperous in life, despite their background in life (race, ethnicity, nationality, etc.…)

KYC is a community based financial empowerment resource for LGBTQ people working in New York City nightlife. KYC aims to empower individuals to make informed and effective decisions with their financial resources and to educate nightlife workers on their entitled labor rights.

Us First is a youth-led fellowship that teaches young people in high school about climate change. Students will learn about climate change, environmental justice(the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulation, and policies), how their government works, and even media training. With what they learn, the students will have opportunities to apply their knowledge of climate change and policy through problem-solving projects. Within the fellowship, the students will identify an issue that concerns climate change and environmental justice within their community and they will try to find a solution to the problem they see.

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Kerry’s Blueprint addresses the issues of campus community and commuter-student participation at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Roughly 85% of UIC students commute, and many students see campus purely as a place for coursework—not for becoming involved in student organizations, volunteer work, or activism. Her vision for the University of Illinois at Chicago is an engaged student body that seeks to create an active, social justice minded campus and to be an ally in solving the issues that affect the city of Chicago. The implementation of her Blueprint includes working toward the following goals: to engage commuter students and create a sense of community; to foster a sense of activism and social justice across campus; and to facilitate leadership training in order to provide student leaders with the tools they need to sustain this movement.

Noting that her University has a strained relationship with the surrounding community, Constance has developed a Blueprint plan that creates space for community members and University students to work together to create a community garden. Through her Blueprint, she worked to have local elementary school students garden alongside USC students to foster mentorship relationships while also filling direct needs in the community for fresh foods and helping to address the impact of Los Angeles numerous environmental problems, such as dangerously unregulated emissions of greenhouses like CO2 from the combustion of cars.

Tracy worked to make the University of Massachusetts a more accessible and inclusive experience for students who are differently-abled. Through her Blueprint, she worked to ensure that the university was surpassing the standards set by the Americans with Disabilities ACT and developed a class on disability rights. She also worked to develop a diversity and inclusion training curriculum that would be required of all members of her university’s community.

Kahlil’s Blueprint involves working to instill the importance of education and community engagement in one hundred high school students of the northern neck of Virginia. His Blueprint provides students with training and mentoring to shift his community’s views of education and prepare high school students to attend, pay for, and graduate from institutions of higher education.

In the 250 years of Brown’s existence, students have always expressed interest in community engagement through scholarships, student groups, and centers such as the Third World Center and Swearer Center. These centers provide students with leadership and volunteer opportunities to engage with Brown and the greater Providence community. In addition, through research, internship opportunities, and entrepreneurship, students find their own ways of engaging with social justice issues. Building on this rich and extensive legacy, Ben hopes to provide the space for students, alumni, faculty, and community members to share skills and continue this historical relationship. The Converge conference, which took place in the spring of 2014, was a three-day space that provided Brown students with resources, skills, and connections to be able to critically engage with issues of social justice. Primarily, the weekend consisted of panels, discussion breakout sessions, and skill-building sessions. Through informal dinners and social events, the event built community amongst Brown University student activists. Each day focused on a different aspect of social justice: the first on identity and personal stories, because sharing our personal experiences drives social justice work; the second on relationship building, because communication skills and networking is important for connecting social justice issues to one another; and the last day culminated in skill-building and organizing tactics so conference attendees could leave with concrete Ben Gellman, Blueprint in Action action steps to take into whatever they do.

Kyler’s Blueprint uses statistical modeling to investigate how Texas congressional district demographics and the individual characteristics of each legislator influence the frequency these lawmakers introduce bills dealing with social justice or civil rights. Using these findings, Kyler will package his results into a summary document that will help progressive organizations better understand and advocate for marginalized communities in Texas.

Kyler attended the University of Texas at Austin studying Political Communications. For much of his undergraduate career, Kyler focused his attention on societal inequalities and the work necessary to eliminate such disparities. He has served as the Chair of the Campus Social Justice Committee and has also interned with the Texas Gay Straight Alliance Network where he developed strategies and toolkits to help combat anti-LGBT bullying in public schools across the state. Kyler also studied abroad in London, where he learned the foundations and applications of public policy as it relates to social and economic justice. Kyler has also interned at People For the American Way.

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After being exposed to the School to Prison Pipeline, a common phrase used to illustrate the police occupancy of public schools, Ribka began to focus her attention on the implications of criminalizing students at young ages. As one of the most pressing issues in the New York Public School systems, Ribka envisioned a public school system where safety is taken into the hands of the NY Education Department rather than the police department. She worked to achieve these goals by partnering with school administrations, teachers and students to brainstorm different ways in which school safety can again become the responsibility of the school.

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Brielle is from Phoenix, Arizona and has studied Spanish and Sociology with a minor in philosophy at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff. She grew up in a community where volunteering was encouraged. Their activism for Phoenix’s homeless, immigrant, and young mother populations played a key role in the formation of her progressive values. She was a co-founder of NAU Collegetown and has served as an advisor to the 2013 executive board. Brielle is an enthusiastic Sex and Body Positive advocate and proponent of the power of contagious optimism. She cares deeply about social stratification on the basis of socioeconomic status and access and their correlative relation to racial minorities. She enjoys all things Harry Potter, clever puns, Swedish Fish, world travel, and weird animal YouTube videos.

YP4 Fellows at Florida A&M University and Florida State University partnered to work on issues of higher education in the state of Florida for their Blueprints for Social Justice. At the time the state was facing the implementation of a Block Tuition bill, which would implement significant budget cuts and could force graduation from state universities to occur within four years, thereby preventing students from pursuing work opportunities or internships during their studies. The Florida YP4 Fellows saw this as a crippling blow to public higher education in their state and mobilized to prevent the passage of this legislation. They kicked off their action plan with a Young People For training March 18-19th, 2005 to educate their community about and heighten awareness surrounding this proposed bill. Through trainings on advocacy techniques, Public education issues, the supreme court, and messaging tactics, the YP4 Fellows attempted to show how the Florida legislature has unfairly targeted higher education with disproportionate budget cuts and how these cuts may limit the accessibility of higher education in the state. The students coordinated with local media and partnered with progressive organizations on campus to garner support for their cause and to mobilize students to be a part of their efforts.

James’ Blueprint is the manifestation of a vision that started years ago. It seeks to open the doors to minority college graduates to job opportunities through the creation of a company that ensures underserved college graduates stay on their path toward career success, gain and maintain economic freedom, and have access to a pipeline of financial comfort. After this Blueprint is implemented and the company is fully developed, James envisions government, non-profit, and private sector employers utilizing this tool to diversify their offices and change the poor rate of hire for minorities. By placing this project in the hands of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, he is working to ensure minority greeks are at the forefront of putting economically disenfranchised populations in leadership positions.

James hails from Kansas City, Missouri, but later resided in Washington, DC. He has worked on a multitude of issues that affect his community including children’s rights with the Children’s Defense Fund; youth justice with the Municipal Court of Independence; homelessness prevention with Enterprise Community Partners, Incorporated and Housing Counseling Services; and various constitutional rights issues with the U.S. House of Representatives and Office of Attorney General for the District of Columbia. These experiences confirmed with James that he has the knowledge and skill-set to build an organization that addresses the root of these issues. Ultimately, James would like to serve as an attorney for justice. He would like to take home the lessons and best practices he has learned in the nation’s capital to help build up the community in which he was born and raised. His passion for justice is what drew him to Young People For (YP4).

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Antoinette Gingerelli was a student at Rutgers University pursuing majors in Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies as well as minors in Middle Eastern Studies and International and Global Studies. Antoinette worked with the Douglass Friends of UNFPA where she found a passion for global health and served as President. For two years, she served as treasurer for the Rutgers Women’s Political Caucus, which encouraged women to run for public office and become actors in the political sphere, and served as President as well. Antoinette served as the AAUW Youth Representative to the United Nations, a County Committeewoman in her hometown and Ms. EduCare 2015 for EduCare Foundation Inc. In the future, Antoinette hopes to pursue a career in social policy reform focusing on health care and education. She hopes to empower women and ensure they are represented in decision-making regarding public policy.

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Brian studied Economic Policy at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Brian has previously worked on projects with the Alliance for Climate Education to increase energy efficiency in the Chicago Public Schools. He is passionate about environmental issues and how they relate to communities and business development. Originally from Mexico City, Brian hopes to develop a sustainable community business model that is relevant to many corners of the globe. Brian has worked with the Sierra Club on the Clean Jobs campaign in Chicago.

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Ismael Gomez is a first generation college student who strives to be the first in his family to earn a Bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. His motivation for accomplishing his academic goals is fueled by the hope that his successes would inspire Hispanic youths to pursue post-secondary education. Ismael demonstrates his passion for empowering the Hispanic community by working for the Nash-Rocky Mount Schools Migrant Education Program. Through this program, Ismael has had the opportunity to tutor students who move from state to state due to their parent’s migratory agricultural work. These students often do not perform well in school due to the varying academic standards across the U.S and the abrupt interruption of their academic year. Ismael has worked to narrow the gap in the education of these children by tutoring them in the subjects they struggle with the most. IsIsmael has served the Hispanic community by being a mentor and encouraging Hispanic youths to pursue post-secondary education in order to strengthen the Hispanic community. Ismael served as the president of the Math and Science Club as well as a student ambassador at Nash Community College and was the former vice president of the Collegiate Academy of the North Carolina Academy of Sciences. These experiences have refined Ismael’s leadership skills, which he has put to use when he worked with migrant youths. Ismael has pursued a career in Biological research and is hopeful that he will be able to serve as an example for other Hispanic youths to follow. Scholarships from NASA and grants funded from North Carolina State University served as evidence that Ismael is a serious and motivated student.

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Amanda was a Sociology major at Texas A&M University. She was a member of SAVE (Student Anti-Violence Educators), a peer education group that facilitated discussions on domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault. She has served on a university sexual violence awareness committee and has appeared in her school’s public service announcements on the issue. She was a volunteer at a sexual assault resource center. Amanda is dedicated to teaching bystander intervention methods to students while promoting a safe campus culture. In addition to her victim advocacy, she was a research assistant in the Department of Sociology.

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2007 UC Berkeley Fellows were able to build a progressive power structure on their campus through student government initiatives.

2007 UC Berkeley Fellows were able to build a progressive power structure on their campus through student government initiatives.

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Maribel is directing and producing a documentary that highlights high incarceration rates and the school to prison pipeline in San Antonio, TX. The documentary is focused on telling the story of those who are impacted by institutions that criminalize communities of color. The voice of children and families will be vital to the mission of the film, which is story telling in an inclusive bottom-up approach. Maribel is dedicated to creating awareness through documentary filmmaking of the high incarceration rate in San Antonio, the culture of prison industrial complex within communities of color, and the impact of both on youth and families.

A student at Florida State University that majored in psychology and political science, Yakiara Gonzalez is working towards becoming an activist for world peace. She was a member of the Dream Defenders Chapter at FSU, an organization committed to promoting social change by training and organizing the youth and students. She has worked as an Upward Bound counselor working with 41 high school students ranging from 9th to 12th grade. In the fall and spring of 2012, she volunteered at a day care center with the Jumpstart Program working with children on various skills such as literacy, vocabulary and phonemic awareness, to promote educational success for their futures. She continues to support those who believe in social justice, equality, and the empowerment of others. She is honored to have been awarded this opportunity to be surrounded by others who are devoted to making the world a better place.

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Jaime Gonzalez is a third generation Chicano from a working class, culturally Mexican-Catholic background, born and raised for half his life in southern California, the other half spent in Wisconsin. His passion for social justice stems from being raised by a single mother who inspires him to always fight for what is just, not only for himself but for his community as well. His involvement in the movement began in the fifth grade as he lead a sit-in against school policies that aimed at silencing student voices and expression and continued on to join organizations such as the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) during high school. During his undergraduate career he served as the chair of the Committee on Diversity Affairs, a sub-committee of the student body government, which addressed issues of injustice that arose on campus using a social justice framework. He also actively participated in various diversity and inclusion initiatives on campus including developing and conducting campus wide social justice trainings for students, faculty, and staff. He also served as a member of the President’s Committee on Diversity Affairs which advised the President on diversity and inclusion matters such as recruitment and retention efforts and opportunities for improvement in academic and co-curricular programs. He also co-founded Alianza, a support group for Latinx students on campus to discuss their ideas and concerns related to their identity and culture. Jaime received his B.A. from Lawrence University and is currently pursuing his M.A. at St. Norbert College where he also serves as Assistant Director of the Cassandra Voss Center, a nationally recognized innovative academic center for gender and identity programming and scholarship.

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First Step Coalition is an organizing committee geared towards developing the empowerment and social engagement of High school and College-aged students in Phoenix, AZ. The organization endeavors to be the “First Step” for students in establishing lasting inter-communal bonds by promoting political representation and civic engagement of traditionally marginalized communities. First Step will focus on the general education of youth surrounding local, state, and national elections, the operation of the courts, and successful campaign implementation through workshops headed by Arizona State University student cultural groups and community partners.

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Carlos studied Political Science and interdisciplinary Latino Studies at Amherst College. He worked to make Amherst a more welcomed and supporting environment for first-generation students through his involvement in student-led organizations like La Causa, the Latino student organization on campus. Carlos is committed to organizing as a means to achieve sustainable social change. He has been a past Midwest Academy Organizing intern and a Grassroots Organizing Weekend (GROW) trainer for the United States Student Association, an opportunity that allowed him to visit colleges across the country and train students on how to be more strategic organizers. He has plans to work on immigrant rights issues, affordable healthcare, and access to higher education. Carlos will study social justice and sustainable development in Fortaleza, Brazil.

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Italia was the state coordinator for New Mexico Dreamers in Action, a youth-led organization of young immigrant students and allies that fight for equity, access to education, healthcare, and the empowerment of immigrant communities regardless of their immigration status all throughout New Mexico and the nation. Her commitment to social justice and activism allows her to use positive youth development to work with high school and college students, as well as families, in leading the movement towards human rights for all people. Italia is also extremely passionate about biology and hopes to attend medical school in the near future, while also doing community-based research.

Eunice Gonzalez-Sierra is a Mexican-American Oaxaqueña who first arrived to the United States in the belly of her immigrant mother. She was born and raised in the Central Coast in Santa Maria, CA where her parents immigrated to and dedicated their lives to picking one of the sweetest fruits in the world, strawberries. She is passionate about social justice, immigrant rights, and educational equity. With a Bachelor’s degree in Chicana/o Studies from UCLA, Eunice hopes to use her own intersecting identities to advocate for educational access and equity and a plethora of social justice issues, she served as a College Site Coordinator for UCSB’S Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) where she worked with young students to ensure they found the tenacity and drive to excel within their educational trajectory, despite many economic and institutional barriers. In the future, Eunice plans to go back to school and earn a Doctorate Degree in Educational Leadership with the hopes of becoming an educational policymaker and/or a principal in one of her local middle schools. Whether it’d be making a difference nationwide or locally, Eunice plans to advocate for educational access and equity for students across the board. On her spare time, Eunice enjoys writing poetry, playing tennis and reading.

Zina Goodall created a program at the New School that provided a safe space for students to think critically about gender roles in society, develop a voice with which to create community, and challenge societally-ingrained isms.

Hoping to extend her work in a local high school, Chelsea used her Blueprint to create an empowerment-driven curriculum and program to first help students become introspective and develop their personal identity, and second to actively engage these students in their communities. Coupling techniques like story-telling and community service, Chelsea was dedicated to helping students identify the own passions and thus helping them determine their own futures.

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Techquity is a collaboration between Tufts Computer Science students and nonprofits that work with marginalized communities in Boston, through a college class. The class involves hands-on experience with a tech project for a nonprofit and curriculum centered on understanding how to combat systemic oppression.

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After serving as the President of Bowling Green State University’s umbrella LGBTQ+ organization for two years, Luke was the first to hold the organization’s Undergraduate Advisor position in his fourth year at the university. He worked to start an LGBTQ+ mentorship program at BGSU, while also restructuring the university’s trans* organization as a lead facilitator. In his activism, Luke strove to bridge gaps across identities and educate others, while continuously educating himself, on the experiences of complex, intersectional identities, both inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community.

UNITY is a platform that provides a community for LGBTQ+ youth by hosting regular inclusive, enjoyable, educational spaces and events for age 16-24 youths in Cleveland County. UNITY aims to give LGBTQ+ youth welcoming spaces where their opinions and experiences are heard and meaningful connections are made.

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Project Pass F.L.E.E. is a push to pass Ohio state legislature that will require at least 10 hours of financial management coursework to be taught by a qualified professional in every high school by the year 2025. The bill will identify unit requirements as well as teaching qualifications necessary to sufficiently teach students in both public and private high schools financial management fundamentals.

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“BLUEPRINT: Organizing to Save Affirmative Action in Michigan. In the November 2006 elections, a statewide ballot initiative called the “”Michigan Civil Rights Initiative”” aimed to ban affirmative action policies and outreach programs at all publicly funded state institutions including higher education institutions. The ballot initiative was sponsored by Ward Connerly

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This Blueprint for Social Justice addresses low voter turnout among students in all elections, as well as the disenfranchisement of students in voting processes. If students have greater difficulty voting, they are less able to vote in their best interests, meaning decisions are made for them. If others are making decisions for them, the results may be detrimental to students, and may not actually reflect the choices they would have made for themselves. This Blueprint seeks to institutionalize voter registration on campus through an already-existing mandatory freshman course. Considering that the Blueprint will be implemented at Arizona State University, the largest public university in the country, this could lead to a vast increase in student voter turnout in the future and may create a model that can be replicated at other institutions.

Before becoming a student at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Grant served for the National nonprofit, City Year. There, he had the opportunity to tutor underserved students while volunteering at a middle school in the South Bronx, New York. During this experience, he was able to foster a belief in the power of young people and work to eliminate income inequality. Grant’s passions are deeply rooted in his conviction that every student deserves an equal opportunity for success.

Through their Blueprint, Derrick Grondin and Marcie Krupski inspired the Northern Michigan University community to provide support for Sudanese refugees in Darfur by collecting educational supplies to ship to refugee camps.

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The Wayne State University YP4 Fellows created a progressive issue awareness campaign for their local community of Detroit. These YP4 Fellows developed a series of events that educated and informed their peers on progressive issues pertinent to the community surrounding the university. This awareness campaign began on March 24th, 2005 with a Young People For training focused on the No Child Left Behind Act. Young People For and the Center for Progressive Leadership, based in Michigan, partnered to put together an afternoon training and evening panel discussion on the realities of the No Child Left Behind Policy and its direct effects on the Detroit community. Following this first event, which targeted members of the Wayne State community as well as local Detroit residents, the Fellows held an event dedicated to affirmative action and, more specifically, the threats this policy faces in the state of Michigan.

Ana Guevara was the Core-Leader for the E.Q.U.A.L. Club at Palm Beach State College-Lake Worth Campus. With the club, she was dedicated to raising awareness about human rights issues in her community. She also believes in equality for all, but most importantly, in a color-blind society where all people can truly be included and not be judged based on their race, background, or sexual orientation. She was also involved in other college organizations, such as ASPIRA, which believed in leadership through education by mainly focusing in the educational attainment of the minorities.

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Tylasha Gusman was a student at the Xavier University of Louisiana with a major in chemistry-pre-pharmacy. She has lived in New Orleans all her life. Tylasha is interested in helping low-income communities to receive access to healthcare. She feels that everyone deserves a chance at a long, happy life.

California’s rural communities are underserved throughout the state — struggles include conflicts with “one-size-fits-all” laws and codes, lower population densities, and large distances between cities. These factors translate into a conservative economic, social, cultural, and environmental landscape that lacks efficiency and effectiveness. The Center for Rural Justice seeks to address the gaps that exist in accessibility and affordability for impacted rural communities through a holistic transformative justice framework via participatory-action research, wellness-based modalities, and health and healing work. This project seeks to understand the complex historical and political landscape of the San Joaquin Valley, deconstruct its current fictions and formations, and partake in reclaiming and rebuilding communities grounded in wellness, sustainability, and community-lead notions of safety.

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Emelyn was a bachelor’s Degree candidate in Public Affairs and Political Science at Bernard Baruch College’s Public Affairs School. She was elected to represent Baruch College as a University Senate Delegate in 2014. Prior to her election, Vice Chair Fernandez successfully started her leadership career as a club leader at her campus. Emelyn was elected to participate in the CUNY Model Senate Program provided by Edward T. Rogowsky Internship Program in Government and Public Affairs. This opportunity made her a winner for the Somos El Futuro Scholarship and an intern in the NYS Assembly working for the Bronx as a community liaison. As Baruch student, Mrs. Fernandez served as the Co-Chair of the Voting Awareness Committee of the University Student Senate. Born and raised in the Dominican Republic, Mrs. Fernandez is also fluent in Spanish.

Elody’s Blueprint focused on countering the effects of rural decline in Millheim, PA. She worked to revitalize the community, moving it forward to a new-age version of its previous state of economic, cultural, and ecological sustainability so it could once again become a lively, empowered, and engaged community with an active appreciation and participation in the arts as an integral part of life.

Laura Hadden developed an art project on her campus that consisted of images of people who utilize welfare and the conditions in which normally surround such circumstances to promote awareness of economic justice, increase public support for full family sanctions on the part of the government, and to help eliminate the stigma around welfare and those who utilize it. She was able to tour it across the state of Washington.

OkcMEthrive, an initiative to help low-income, first-generation college students attend college is a district-wide effort to help high school students not only apply to college, but to learn how to seek financial assistance, academic health, and to graduate from a university. The OkcMEthrive initiative will consist of various current first-generation college students who will serve as advisors to high school students. Not only will the advisors help the high school students make efforts to prepare for college entrance, but they will also counsel their femtees/mentees/themtees on the struggles of being a first-generation college student and some of the adversity that they may face. OkcMEthrive will not only help countless students pursue their dream, but it will also allow them to create a path for not only themselves but their communities and families as well.

For his Blueprint, Philmon founded the Seattle Immigrant Stories Project (SISP, which focuses on using digital media storytelling to create a more just world. SISP is supporting immigrant youth with the resources and skills to film documentaries about their family’s migration to the US, creating cultural products that expand the image of what it means to be an American through the telling of diverse American immigrant experiences.

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BLUEPRINT: Building Community in Miami. YP4 Fellows at the University of Miami brought over 1,000 university and high school students from across Miami to do service work together and to begin to build alliances between universities, high schools and community-based organizations. One participant had this to say about their experience: Along with dozens of other students from Miami-Dade College, we were able to start a vegetable garden that will provide food for the locals.”

Emma was a dual major in American Studies and women, gender, & sexuality studies, with minors in public policy and economics. She served as Student Body Vice President at the University of Kansas, where she prioritized Title IX-sexual assault efforts. Her primary area of focus is state-level reproductive health policy, and she frequently advocated in the State Legislature on behalf of young people and reproductive justice.

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Stephanie served as the Development Director of the UT Microfarm, a campus farm dedicated to sustainable, organic agriculture, and the President of UT Austin Chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Through her involvement in these organizations, she explored issues of institutionalized racism and economic inequality, particularly regarding the relationship between racial and economic inequality in Austin, Texas, and access to fresh, healthy food. By connecting with local leaders and pioneering organizations such as Food for Black Thought, she seeks an interdisciplinary approach to addressing these issues in her community.

Devon believes food can be a catalyst for social change. Food educates, celebrates and builds community, and it drives our daily actions. If we are what we eat and our communities are only as strong as the individuals who compose it, our communities are largely shaped by our individual consumption habits. Underrepresented urban populations are often targets of inaccessible nutritious food sources, ensuing that they are plagued with expensive health issues and malnutrition. However, too much power is granted to food distributers and fast food restaurants that take advantage of cheap food production, and it’s time people become more creative about what they eat, innovative about how they cultivate it, and constructive by engaging in dialogues about consumption. This can be accomplished in part by providing our neighborhoods with colorful fruits and vegetables and practicing entomophagy, the consumption of insects. Insects are considered high quality, inexpensive, sustainable protein sources. By converting segments of lawns, roof tops, and vacant lots into gardens and becoming comfortable with consuming/cultivating insects, communities can begin to take back their neighborhoods and tackle the many obstacles they face.

Devon is a Posse scholar from Leimert Park, Los Angeles. He completed his undergraduate degree in Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His interests include food security, social justice, edible and natural landscaping, education, and various other matters that collectively contribute to the improvement of our personal and communal mental, physical, and spiritual health. He recognizes our current food system‒s capacity to drastically shape our communities and acknowledges its power both as a tool of oppression and empowerment. With this in mind, he intends to pursue a career that further empowers people through the facilitation of progressive communal conversations around the growth and consumption of food.

BLUEPRINT: Changing Communities by Changing Consumption Habits. Devon believes food can be a catalyst for social change. Food educates, celebrates and builds community, and it drives our daily actions. If we are what we eat and our communities are only as strong as the individuals who compose it, our communities are largely shaped by our individual consumption habits. Underrepresented urban populations are often targets of inaccessible nutritious food sources, ensuing that they are plagued with expensive health issues and malnutrition. However, too much power is granted to food distributers and fast food restaurants that take advantage of cheap food production, and its time people become more creative about what they eat, innovative about how they cultivate it, and constructive by engaging in dialogues about consumption. This can be accomplished in part by providing our neighborhoods with colorful fruits and vegetables and practicing entomophagy, the consumption of insects. Insects are considered high quality, inexpensive, sustainable protein sources. By converting segments of lawns, roof tops, and vacant lots into gardens and becoming comfortable with consuming/cultivating insects, communities can begin to take back their neighborhoods and tackle the many obstacles they face.

Brent, a 2014 Fellow is now propelling himself toward the front of the issue of Courts and Community Safety and Justice particularly in the inner city communities of his hometown of Chicago. Part of the goal of his blueprint for Social Justice, seeks to lift upon the positive alternatives that might help lead to the reduction of what he labels: incarceration and assassination of people of color. Since being offered the awesome opportunity of becoming a fellow with YP4, Brent became a volunteer of many political campaigns of progressive candidates whose mission was to tackle this issue head on. He became more active in groups such as: The Stop Mass Incarceration Network, The Iron Student Network, The Black Youth Project as well as just recently joining the Associate board member of Build Chicago. Build is a nonprofit based out of Chicago, who for almost 50 years has worked tirelessly in some of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods to curb the violence that they point out takes away not only the positive potential but also most tragic, the very lives of young people. He is also a part of the Gun Violence Prevention network with Generation Progress and is among the many progressive millennials chosen to take part in the Fight for a Future summit. Brent takes great pride in speaking to younger audiences and their families about the importance of Identity, history and self- determination. He is a Child Development Specialist with JCC Chicago. Brent plans on going for a Master’s degree in Special Education in the fall of 2015.

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“BLUEPRINT: Organizing to Save Affirmative Action in Michigan. In the November 2006 elections, a statewide ballot initiative called the “”Michigan Civil Rights Initiative”” aimed to ban affirmative action policies and outreach programs at all publicly funded state institutions including higher education institutions. The ballot initiative was sponsored by Ward Connerly

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Stephanie envisions Providence public schools with comprehensive sexual health education for all eighth graders in the city. She is working to build a program at Brown University that partners with groups from other nearby universities to provides sexual health education for middle school and high school students in the area. Her vision is that all facilitators will be college students.

Quiana was a political science major at Winston-Salem State University. A native of Rich Square, NC, Quiana hopes to bring political awareness and promote civic engagement in the rural areas of North Carolina, as well as on her university’s campus. Her passion for social justice and political activism continues to develop as she strives to educate her peers and community on the importance of being involved in every aspect of our communities.

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Shon was the President of the Xi Eta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, an active member of the Wake Forest University Gospel Choir, the Protégé’ Mentoring Program, and NAACP. As a first-generation college student, Shon is passionate about tackling the numerous educational disparities within the American public schooling system as well as serving as an advocate for underrepresented demographics. Shon would like to establish a non-profit that focuses on providing resources for at-risk youth so that they can pursue higher education.

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John wants to increase the education of financial literacy, life skills and leadership development. By writing curriculum for financial literacy classes for his Blueprint, he worked to increase the understanding of this concept and increase the amount of people in his community who understand the importance of financial literacy.

After graduating from Hendrix College, Elana began working with the Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas as an Energy Corps member. While working on a series of energy efficiency and renewable energy presentations, she discovered that while some cities were interested in investing in sustainable initiatives, they lacked the necessary funds or personnel to launch a public program. In the U.S., only 12% of adults can pass a basic energy literacy exam. Elana’s Blueprint addresses this issue by providing cities with a toolkit of quizzes, educational handouts, and policy and financing information to launch a public energy education program. The “Green Corner” toolkit promotes energy efficiency throughout the state in order to improve local economies, promote public health, and create a more sustainable Arkansas.

Shana’s Blueprint for Social Justice concentrates on her belief that all people should not only be able to participate in their government, but also understand the importance of public matters and civic engagement. Shana plans to implement her voter education efforts in local Urbana-Champaign public schools, and continuing her work with voter registration drives in the larger Urbana-Champaign community. Partnering with local schools, the Illinois Student Senate, Campaign County Democrats and Republicans and several other organizations, Shana hopes to greatly increase the number of people who understand the importance of voting as well as the number of people who get out to the polls.

Greg is a Ronald E. McNair Scholar from Detroit, Michigan who studied public relations and ethnic studies at Bowling Green State University.
He was the President of the Black Student Union on BGSU’s campus, an organization whose mission was to encourage and increase cultural and political awareness of black students amongst the campus community.
He would like to obtain a government career that serves disenfranchised and underrepresented communities.

Elana pursued an International Relations degree while at Hendrix College. Her interest in environmental justice led her to assist the Sierra Club in hosting a series of clean energy town hall meetings across the state. She also researched and tracked progressive policies for the Arkansas Public Policy Panel during the most recent state legislative session. Above all, she values the opportunity to watch non-traditional allies, such as hunters and conservationists, as well as natural gas companies and landowners affected by hydraulic fracturing, find common ground. Elana is passionate about building coalitions amongst diverse populations and finding non-traditional solutions for complex issues.

BLUEPRINT:  Green Corner Toolkit. After graduating from Hendrix College, Elana began working with the Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas as an Energy Corps member. While working on a series of energy efficiency and renewable energy presentations, she discovered that while some cities were interested in investing in sustainable initiatives, they lacked the necessary funds or personnel to launch a public program. In the U.S., only 12% of adults can pass a basic energy literacy exam. Elana’s Blueprint addresses this issue by providing cities with a toolkit of quizzes, educational handouts, and policy and financing information to launch a public energy education program. The Green Corner toolkit promotes energy efficiency throughout the state in order to improve local economies, promote public health, and create a more sustainable Arkansas.

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Cheyenne sees broadening art access and artistic expression as an integral part of the movement for justice and change. She envisions a campus and city where students and community members feel an investment in each other and actively portray this value in the way that they organize their lives. She envisions all community members using their artistic minds to reflect on the idea and common goal of an equitable existence and sustainable community, allowing them to be grounded in their values while pushing the movement for change forward. Her blueprint addresses art access by trying to expand the way that we understand who is and who is not an artist, and it addresses a lack of balance between reflection and action in the movement.

Tranard Harvin attended Claflin University where he studied psychology. He has a passion for working with underprivileged youth because he has experienced such conditions growing up. He understands the value of a quality education and seeks to instill the importance of community involvement in those who fail to realize it. Tranard is the founder of the Low Country Youth Enhancement Program (LCYEP), a youth-led outreach group that seeks to enhance the natural abilities of the youth in Williamsburg County, SC. He plans to move the youth in his native community by expressing the importance of self-investment and community awareness.

As the 2012 Director of Curriculum, coordinator, and mentor for My Brother’s Keeper, a mentoring program for traditionally marginalized youth, Liz created a curriculum that focuses on enhancing reading, writing, and comprehension skills through performance literacies education. She envisions a world where children have access to higher education, strong cultural-esteem, and are comfortable and engaged in the classroom. She believes educational spaces should prioritize inclusive cultural and historical curriculums and learning experiences. Liz’s work is developing future leaders who will ensure that our communities are free, just, and empowered. By implementing multi-literacies pedagogy, students are allowed the space to use their linguistic and cultural diversity to better explore and create knowledge while engaging critically with the world. She plans to implement this curriculum next year in Atlanta local schools and communities.

Tamarre Torchon was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. There she grew up fully immersed in rich Haitian culture. Torchon was the South Eastern Regional Director for National Action Network’s Youth Move, one of the leading civil rights organizations in the Nation with chapters throughout the entire United States. She is dedicated to organizing youth in communities to advocate for social justice, education, and against youth violence. Tamarre was a student at Georgia State University and studied Public Policy and Urban Education. Torchon has plans to continue her efforts in and outside of the community through civil service and social justice work.

Off the Street and In Your Seat Initiative is an effort to support high school students at The Cary High school in Cary, North Carolina. Students who are in jeopardy of failing class(es) and dropping out due to skipping class, tardies, and general attendance. The support would be administered by Sultan M. Hassan and monitored by Cary High school administration.

Courtney Hauck developed her passion for law and its role in promoting equal opportunity in business, health, and education during high school; she has carried on that passion as she remained active in her community and pursued majors in Chinese, Business, and Religion at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA. She worked as a law clerk for two consecutive summers in 2013 and 2014, implemented a community project to increase college access in her hometown as a Bezos Scholar, and used her role as a Johnson Scholar and leader in campus initiatives such as Moot Court and the biennial Science, Society & the Arts Symposium. Courtney is dedicated to exploring ideas and using her knowledge to promote social justice in her campus community and beyond.

Electify: The election day app is the core product of a multi-year campaign and project to improve the availability of information for every election cycle in the county of Macon-Bibb, Georgia. The vision of Electify is to bring excitement, information, education, scheduling, and convenience to every citizen for election day in Macon-Bibb, with a goal of launching the midterm elections in November 2018. For the purpose of this Blueprint for Social Justice, Electify will focus only on bringing voting accessibility and information to only one county in Georgia, as a test case. Future development includes expanding access to Electify across the state of Georgia over the next several years.

MO Rides was a program, run through the Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC) that served eight counties in the Rolla, MO area by providing free rides to low-income individuals in these counties. The program relied on a Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) grant and donations from the communities in this area. In working with the MRPC, Wade was able to help create and become a member of the outreach committee for the MO Rides program. Wade is now working to begin another program that will take the place MO Rides had in the communities it served and provide a comprehensive service to folks below the poverty line that attacks some of the root causes of the issue by assisting these individuals with purchasing a vehicle of their own.

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High Definition is a direct service for junior and senior high school students in low-income communities on the south side of Chicago. HD’s aim is to build community by providing opportunities and resources to students looking to start their career, build business, and impact their communities.

BLUEPRINT: Immigrant Rights at Carlton College.The Carleton YP4 Fellows wanted to inform their campus about immigrants rights issues, encourage people to think about the issue in a progressive way, and build an alliance between the campus and local Northfield community. To do so, the Carleton YP4 Fellows brought several groups together to host an informational panel featuring several faculty members knowledgeable about the issue of immigration. Community members were also invited and encouraged to attend. The debate was lively and productive. The Fellows designed and distributed bumper stickers at the event designed to show their support for immigrants rights. There are now many cars driving around Northfield with their bumpers declaring Si Se Puede!

The Center for Civic Engagement and Young People For, a project of the People For the American Way Foundation, have joined forces to sponsor the CYnergy Fellowship program for high school students from the El Paso Community.

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Mary-Pat was the National Youth Director for National Action Network, A Peace First Fellow and a student at Spelman College. Her passion is advocating for nonviolence through direct action. Mary-Pat is a motivational speaker and community organizer. Since her teen years, she has developed strategies and advised non-profits on relevant ways to educate, engage and empower youth.

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Markita is a black, queer woman who served as secretary of the African Student Union at UofL, a university located in a city that has eight times the number of African immigrants and refugees than the national average. She unconditionally defends the human rights of undocumented citizens of the United States, advocates for the fair treatment and equal opportunity in the education of disempowered youth, and is dedicated to social justice with a vision for community empowerment. Markita genuinely believes that people were more important than money, and fights for a world where human needs are considered before profit.

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Zachary studied political science at Columbia University. He was the co-coordinator of the Columbia Urban Experience pre-orientation program, a week-long program that introduced incoming first-year students to different communities within New York City through community service partnerships and critical academic discussion. He also served as a coordinator for the Men of Color Alliance, a multicultural community building organization. Zachary discovered his spark for political engagement while attending The American Legion Boys State of Kansas summer program, and he hopes to similarly inspire other Kansas youth. Uniting Zachary’s varied interests is a desire to build connections University people from diverse backgrounds and to facilitate growth in pursuit of a common goal.

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Shayne’s Blueprint addressed campus sustainability issues by creating a recycling program for the on-campus Greek houses at the University of Arkansas.

Steve’s activism at University of Texas El Paso included the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA), Queer Student Alliance, and Students for Awareness and Community Service. His volunteer experience has included the Vagina Monologues, Queer Prom, and Project Move in the community.

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Joseph was a student at Modesto College in Modesto, California. Joseph enjoys volunteering in his community. Joseph majored in International Relations and plans to transfer to The University of the Pacific after MJC. Joseph hopes that one day he can make powerful impacts on disadvantaged places around the world.

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Steven’s vision for the future is for everybody in the communities of El Paso, Texas, southeast New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico, to have the power to make healthy choices with their own body. His Blueprint focuses on starting an abortion fund, known as the West Fund, which will provide the resources to pay for abortion services – such as birth control or the surgery itself – that they need but don’t have any access to. The Fund is also dedicated to fighting for reproductive rights and informing others in the community about medically accurate sex education

As a student at the University of Arizona in the College of Public Health, Alma Hernandez was the Campus Engagement Coordinator for CatPac Wildcats for Israel where she oversaw the recruitment of pro-Israel political activists. Her involvement with the Global Medical Brigades Professional chapter has led her to travel to Africa and help in clinics for the underserved communities in the western region of Ghana.

Tees N’ Tors is a program that partners high school students with elementary children in Wards 7 and 8. The program will pair “tors” with “tees” to provide tutoring, conversation, and general companionship. This program provides mentorship for young students of color and promotes healthy relationships.

Expressions of Frida is a six-week-long art program that focuses on educating Latinx youth in Essex County, New Jersey about Latinx (the X represents gender inclusivity) artists from the past and present to expose them to the beauty of their history and culture along with teaching them about the important connection between art and activism. This program will be exclusively for Latinx youth to provide them a space to express themselves. Most often, the art taught to children in school is from well-known European artists, which leads to a lack of representation in the classroom. Representation is pivotal for Latinx children as the Latinx community is significantly underrepresented and misrepresented in the mainstream media.

As a woman who is from a working-class family, Consuelo has experienced firsthand how important education is, and how many social and economic gaps it can bridge. She has reached out to high school students on the south side of Tucson to create a visual plan of where they want to go in life and to let them know they have millions of possibilities and options if they decide to follow through and work hard. Through interning for a State Senate campaign in Arizona, Consuelo actively recruited volunteers and interns, and, with their assistance, she helped to elect political officials who support education and the LGBTQ community.

Jennyfer was a student at the University of Richmond majoring in political science and international studies with a minor in women gender and sexuality studies. She was the Vice-President of Women* in Living and Learning. She has interned in various political campaigns and organized her campus to make sure that students were registered to vote as well as get out the vote efforts. She also worked as a legal secretary for an immigration law firm in Richmond, VA.

Laura Hernandez graduated from Florida International University. She holds two bachelors in Political Science and Women and Gender Studies. At FIU, Laura was Vice President of the FIU N.O.W. chapter, served on the national student advisory council for AAUW, and held several internship positions. As an active student on campus she founded the Her Campus chapter at FIU, developed Title IX resource flyers for the University, co-launched the first feminist summit, and lobbied FIU’s SGA to provide funding to send a coalition of students to the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders two years in a row. Previous to joining her current position, Laura worked as an electoral organizer in Miami for Planned Parenthood’s Action Fund under the Community Outreach where she helped to grow state membership and recruited volunteers to volunteer for the Hillary for America 2016 campaign. In her current role, Laura is able to combine her passions in feminist activism and community organizing to help progress and protect access to reproductive healthcare for all and empower the community she grew up in. Laura was also recently recognized as a “Miami Girl” leader who is shaping the future of her city. Laura enjoys creating new vegan recipes, tweeting, and reading all the feminist theory books she can get her hands on.

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Power Up is a new nonprofit that aims to create an after-school care program meant to terminate the achievement gap between underprivileged students and their more well-off peers in Miami-Dade County. Our aim is to provide a safe, educational space where elementary school children will learn programming and artistic skills through video game creation, something that is much more engaging to children than traditional teaching methods. We’ll run our after-school programs out of the children’s school, taking full advantage of any computing labs that might be available. Our business model will be based on acquiring funds through government and foundation grants as well as yearly fundraising events in the South Florida area in collaboration with the gaming industry.

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Born in the U.S. and raised in Mexico, Veronica came to the U.S. to pursue a major in philosophy with a double minor in religious studies and political science and would like to pursue a master’s degree in theology with a concentration in comparative religion studies and a Ph.D. in philosophy. She served as president of the Texas Freedom Network chapter at her university (UTPA) in Edinburg, Texas.

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Domonique Hill attended Cleveland State University majoring in Criminology. She was a member of the University Scholars program at Cleveland State and a security guard in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Domonique Hill is a dedicated and hardworking young woman that will be the voice of her generation.

Alex Hill worked to improve the infrastructure of S.C.O.U.T. B.A.N.A.N.A., an organization that aims to promote and support community-based projects and initiatives in Africa, including, but not limited to: fighting preventable diseases, providing a secure source of food and clean water, improving child and maternal health, and sponsoring community health-worker trainings. Through his Blueprint, Alex worked to move the organization from an informal affiliation of 18 university chapters in 5 states and 2 Canadian provinces to a formal umbrella organization with solid support structures

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Jennifer’s Blueprint addressed the problems of domestic abuse and sexual assault by motivating community members to act on these issues. She achieved this primarily through a variety of Domestic Abuse Awareness Month awareness-raising activities that were open to the general public; encouraging appropriate responses to these issues through advocacy efforts; and implementing prevention efforts through educational resources in her county’s schools to reduce the amount of abuse and sexual assault in the area.

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Noticing the prominence of unsustainable agricultural practices and industrial agriculture/agricultural subsidies, Mariah has dedicated her Blueprint to combatting these problems in her Tucson community. Through her analysis of the intersections of food justice, racism and unsustainable practices, Mariah advocated on behalf of the most traditionally marginalized people in her community in order to bring them healthy, local and organic foods. Focusing on the importance of accessibility, Mariah planned to create more holistically supported farms-to-school programs and school gardens.

In the 2012 election, less than six in ten Americans voted. A third of all Americans cannot name all three branches of government and another third cannot even name a single branch of government. American students receive the worst test scores in civics and history than in any other subject. Too many Americans feel disenfranchised from the political process because they never felt part of it. Alex’s Blueprint I M Power empowers young people to partake in the political process through hands on experience. I M Power assigns a student teacher to work with an individual classroom once a week for eight weeks, who works with students to identify an issue before their community that affects them in their day-to-day lives. With the guidance of the student leader, students research that issue and learn how to advocate for their interests. The class concludes with students taking substantive action on the issue they choose. For example, students could advocate on an issue they are about to their elected official or write an op-ed. Our democracy functions best when we all participate and work together. I M Power provides students with an open forum to develop a foundation of civic engagement for the rest of their lives

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Warriors is a faith-based organization that aims to address barriers that prevent students from having a fair education. Warriors will pressure the current school board administration to invest in more programs built to help impoverished students and low performing schools. Warriors will work to achieve education justice by closing the gap between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students. It will allocate resources that will help more students become college-ready. Warriors will also empower students to become the best version of themselves by building their motivational, goal setting, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills through numerous initiatives.

Birthright Africa is an organization on Emory University’s campus that seeks to connect Black students to their roots in Africa through a year-long fellowship program that includes a trip to a specific country in Africa. This program is important and vital for Black students because it is our birthright to visit our homeland. This right has been taken away from millions of Black people. In order to bridge the gap and give Black students this opportunity, this program has been created. Birthright Africa belongs on Emory’s campus because the campus was built on slave labor. Additionally, plenty of Emory’s founders supported the secession of the confederacy in order to keep slave labor legal in the south. The program serves as a unique and effective way that Emory can continue to promote the diversity and equity sectors of its mission statement.

Costing a fraction of the public or private university price, rarely taking previous academic performance into account, and facilitating the transition into undergraduate learning, community college is the egalitarian approach to education. As a believer in upward socioeconomic mobility through higher education, Clementine wants to educate young people, specifically high school seniors, about the resources available to them and the financial benefits of choosing the 2-year community college route. Not only are these resources abundant, but they are underutilized and under-promoted. Clementine wants to empower young people through informational sessions at local high schools, where students can learn from college students who chose the community college route and are creating outstanding experiences for themselves.

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The Fellows at American University created the DC Consortium. Similar to a think tank in structure, DC Consortium allowed both activism and policy to be produced and publicized in the shcool community. The goals of the DC Consortium were fivefold: to publish and promote progressive and reliable policy research; give university students the resources and network they needed to investigate policy issues that interested them; meet professionals working on the front-line of said policy research; incubate the dynamic ideas and discussions put forth by students; and to ensure youth’s voices were heard and acknowledged by international and domestic policymakers at all levels of governance.

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The Jackson Heights mural project was inspired by the creative potential for movement building through art, cultural exchange and community organizing. As student organizers, young artists and passionate creators, Sharmin called out for young community members to collectively create and contribute to a community mural in Jackson Heights. This mural is inclusive of many different marginalized groups: undocumented people, labor migrants, and victims of racial profiling in a stop-and-frisk police state and Islamophobia. The mural project is intended to collectivize community energy into a project that involves grassroots community outreach and to foster learning and engaging in dialogue to create a vision that addresses the socio-economic and political realities of the Jackson Heights community. Her work addresses problems of an artless world, which lacks the vision and beauty that can address and re-enforce many realities, and in which truths and inspirations that do not occupy our everyday lives. This art project is a reminder that we must envision the world we want to see, through collective action, art and transformative justice.

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Jordan is a thought leader at the intersection of sustainability, environmental education, and youth empowerment. As one of the youngest sustainability educators and green school champions, Jordan understands that education is empowerment, and she made it her mission to provide youth with the inspiration and tools to create the change they want to see in their schools, communities, and cities. Jordan was an environmental skeptic until she realized she was skeptical because she wasn’t educated on the solutions to environmental issues. Jordan has worked with non-profits across the globe to create programs to educate and engage elementary through high school students on environmental issues. From opening for Secretary Hillary Clinton at fundraisers for President Obama to developing youth programs to educate pre-teens in India, Jordan’s journey to equip youth to be the catalysts for change around the world is only beginning.

Adorie attended Stanford University. She is passionate about art and storytelling as a way to reclaim history, connect people across generations, and inspire collective action. She wants to learn more about the ways intergenerational trauma manifests itself, especially among historically marginalized groups, and how people can heal from this. Her involvement around campus has ranged from cofounding a developing Black Feminist Collective to advocating for improved mental health services. She aspires to develop a community program that would allow for communities, especially those of color and in poverty, to reclaim their power, resist, and reimagine the world we live in.

Future Without Femicide will enable activists and concerned community members to push for laws that eliminate gender-based violence and femicide through advocating for legislative action. This project will create an online database of risk factors and provide prompts for activists to use to push for change.

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Tim is working to inspire more talented college students, especially at Stanford University, to engage in public service and to join a social change movement to tackle any issue (environment, health, education, immigration, LGBT rights, etc.) that is meaningful to them in their community. Partnering with the Haas Center for Public Service, as well as other student public servants on campus, he is developing a video & interview series about leading public servants on campus, such that these students can reflect, market, and inspire other students through their stories. His vision is to empower Stanford students to reflect on, share about, and engage in public service to meaningfully create change in communities. His goal is to use video storytelling/interviewing to inspire students who have not traditionally been engaged in social justice initiatives.

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Shakera was a junior majoring in Applied Communications and African American Studies minor from Fort Worth, Texas. On a mission for knowledge, integrity, and peace Shakera served as an Executive Board Member of the P.O.W.E.R. Study Group on her campus as well as a Student Ambassador for the John H. Johnson School of Communications. Shakera is dedicated to promoting her core values of love, honesty, respect, and perseverance. This has led her to seek coalition and cohesiveness in the African American community as well as between communities everywhere. A small business owner, Shakera intends to “MANIFEST EXCELLENCE” with her entrepreneurial endeavors to empower young adults, thereby “Equipping Changed Youth to Change The World”.

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In the average year about 1.089% of the US population will experience homelessness compared to 12.5% of the US transgender population (James et al., 2016). More locally, centralized services to help homeless individuals in Ohio, namely the Ohio Community Shelter Board and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing, both fail to mention the words “LGBT,” “queer,” and/or “transgender” even once on their websites or in their educational materials. The Queer Safety Project seeks to remedy this problem by reaching out to both homeless shelter leadership and to the LGBTQ centers nearest to them to find ways in which the two can partner and work together to create better conditions for LGBTQ homeless people in their community.

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BLUEPRINT: Consciousness Raising at Georgetown University. Georgetown YP4 Fellows brought a progressive training to campus to inspire the masses to become more active politically. At the conference, participants learned about issues in the LGBTQ community, womens rights, and voters rights. The Fellows training was held in September and was an incredible success, they trained close to 100 active and engaged students.

According to the CDC, black gay men are disproportionately impacted by HIV compared to other demographic groups in the United States. They report the highest incidence rates nationally. In addition, black men remain vulnerable to HIV criminalization laws that would prosecute those who knowingly transmit and expose HIV to others; however, some of these laws need to be reexamined (CDC) The high rates of black men living with HIV and the criminalization of black men living with HIV is both a failure of public health service delivery and negligence in policy creation. In order to improve conditions for black gay men, Overtones will encourage black gay men to become more civically engaged in policy and public health work to improve community vulnerabilities to HIV and HIV criminal laws. Overtones will also encourage allies to seek out the expertise of black gay leadership and support the mobilization of black gay communities.

Reginald (He/His/Him) is a native of Atlanta, Georgia where he attended Morehouse College and graduated with a B.A. in Sociology. After Morehouse, he moved to Brooklyn, NY where he served as 6th grade math learning specialist at Achievement First for a year. In 2016, he moved to Houston, TX to serve as founding high school math teacher at YES Prep Eisenhower. Reginald’s passion for education was ignited while serving as a scholar coordinator at KIPP: STRIVE in Metro Atlanta during his undergraduate tenure. His passion was cemented after winning the Maureen Yusef-Morales Teaching Excellence Award from Breakthrough New York, a non-profit organization that transforms the lives of motivated, low-income students by preparing them for college graduation, as a summer teaching fellow. Reginald is currently enrolled in Columbia University’s Teacher College pursuing a masters in educational leadership while also continuing to teach full-time. Reginald was a 2014 YP4 fellow where his blueprint was to create a program to activate and inspire young black boys in the Southwest Atlanta community. Reginald was also a 2016 YP4 mentor and is excited to jump back into mentorship again.

Brianna Huth and Angie Follina worked to increase awareness about sexual violence in their community by hosting a successful V-Day event and raising funds for a training program at their local YWCA for Cleveland State students, which taught participants on how to effectively counsel victims of sexual violence.

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The purpose of RPCQPM is to establish a sustainable student organization on the campus of USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy and create a Queer Peer Mentorship Program. This will create community, build power, and change the campus culture through direct service and community organizing efforts.

Olaoluwa worked create a campus division of Philos — the youth led division of the non-profit SADA, which works to increase the availability of the basic necessities for individual economic development in third-world nations — at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania and at other cmapuses in the state and across the Northeast.

Throughout the nation, state violence against Muslims is an integral part of political governments at the local, state, and federal levels. Violence includes white supremacist attacks, bomb threats on mosques, anti-Muslim bullying in schools and workplaces, the Muslim ban, Countering Violence Extremism programs, and so forth. In response, a grassroots anti-racist Muslim-led initiative is being created in South Florida to address this state violence. Our work will commence with an annual Muslim Youth Social Justice Summit that we hope will sustain and expand into local, yearlong community projects. This will build power into Muslim youth, train grassroots activist leaders, and create a sustainable, autonomous Muslim movement that will work in solidarity with other marginalized folks in South Florida.

Anders Ibsen-Nowak worked to mobilize the Evergreen State College community around civil liberties and constitutional guarantees. Anders worked to establish an ACLU chapter at Evergreen State College by organizing like-minded students towards a common goal and by reaching out to younger students to ensure the chapter’s growth and sustainability for the future. Tapping into the variety of resources available to him, Anders drew support from the Evergreen Student Union and student news journals, as well as the network of ACLU chapters on the campus, regional, and state levels.

Joy was a History and International Studies double major at Spelman College. She is very passionate about creating sustainable development for countries in Africa and empowering youth to create change in their communities. Joy interned at Women Watch Afrika and with the Food Chain Workers Alliance. At Spelman, she served as the Community Outreach Chair for the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, a Class Agent on the Student Philanthropy Council, and the SGA Representative for the History Club. Joy loves to let everyone know she is Nigerian. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring and listening to music.

Blessing Ikpa attended American University’s School of International Service in Washington DC to pursue her Master’s in Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs. She is most passionate about issues relating to human rights and social justice. Blessing has completed internships with Oxfam International in Italy, Oklahoma Policy Institute, and the Gender + Equality Center at the University of Oklahoma where she completed her undergraduate degree in Criminology – Sociology. Blessing hopes to continue her love of traveling through her future career while implementing a focus on basic human rights for all people.

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Ayesha Islam attended Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, majored in International Studies and double-minored in Arabic and Creative Writing. She was born in Arizona, grew up throughout various areas of the Northeast, and lived in York City. As a female Muslim minority, Ayesha is a triple-threat combination of marginalized groups and fought for the voices of these communities. She was a certificate recipient of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations for her activism-based work on Guantanamo Bay and police brutality. Ayesha has worked with Amnesty International for three years, served as Student Activist Coordinator of Amnesty’s Northeast regional leadership team for one year, and contributed to multiple national level roles with Amnesty’s Headquarters. She’s had experience working for judges, law firms, nonprofits, political offices, election campaigns, and more because she believes public service is an avenue for impactful social change. Her critical essay titled “Guantanamo Bay: A Real-Life Horror Story” won a Regional Gold Key within York City, and then moved on to win a National Gold Medal within the United States for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 2015. She believes in the power of writing to shed light on injustices and is passionate about using narratives to share oft-ignored perspectives. Ayesha is considering various paths for her future, from participating in diplomatic work with the State Department or the United Nations to working in fields of local politics and government or to become a lawyer. The specific profession doesn’t matter as much as the outcome of her work. If Ayesha can make the world a bit more bearable to live in, put one mother’s worry for her children’s safety at ease, or help one person seek justice, then she knows she was doing the right work.

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Black and Determined will provide a brave space for youth in underrepresented communities. In this brave space the goal is to provide/create a professional & personal development for youth to learn different ways about career exploration, social skills, health & being, including self-awareness.

Danielle worked to improve the lives of young Native American women by helping them increase their self-esteem through holistic wellness and a deeper grounding in traditional knowledge. To do this, she built partnerships with progressive non-profits in Albuquerque to develop a mentorship program for Native Soul Youth.

Romeo Jackson is a black, queer, non-binary, feminist who is dedicated to intersectional justice and cross movement building. They attended Northern Illinois University where they pursued a specialized degree in Intersectionality and Social Justice and will be attending the University of Utah to pursue their graduate education in Student Affairs and Gender Studies. They have served as the Director of Culture Affairs for NIU’s Student Association and a student staff for NIU’s Gender and Sexuality Resource Center. Romeo also served on the National Advisory Council for the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education and the President of the Campus Pride National Advisory Board. Named one of the 100 Black and LGBT-SGL leaders to watch, Romeo is committed to uplifting and empowering queer and trans people of color through a critical black queer feminist lens.

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“BLUEPRINT: Critical Queer Perspectives on Prison Abolition. Jenny is interested in the intersections of gender, sexuality, criminalization, and race. For her Blueprint, she organized a series of events at her college, one of which was a panel with three phenomenal speakers, titled Who are the Violent Ones? Critical Queer Perspectives on Prison Abolition.”” This panel invited the community to discuss the ways that gender and sexual deviance are criminalized in our society

Andrea worked to raise awareness as to how class divides activists and organizations and creates unneccessary barriers that prevent cooperation and mutual aid between them in order to build a more cohesive and powerful progressive network.

Joanna is a New Yorker who studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she majored in social welfare with certificates in gender & women’s studies and global health. She was the publicity coordinator at The Campus Women’s Center, a resource and referral center for students of all identities on campus. Joanna has also interned at Girl Rising, where she worked on their campaign to raise awareness about the power of educating girls. She is very passionate about using feminism as a tool of empowerment for youth, and largely credits Buffy the Vampire Slayer for igniting this passion when she was young.

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Valerie’s goal is to promote a more equitable collegiate experience for all of the students on her campus. She is particularly interested in helping undocumented students gain access to the resources and tools that will help them be successful in an academic environment. In order to attain her goals Valerie hopes to develop a Community Center on her campus that will be accessible to all students and will include free computer use, fee waivers for applications and specific programing focused on recruitment and retention of undocumented students.

The goal of Lifelong Learning is to create a more a culturally competent and sound curriculum for English Language Learners across Texas. Lifelong Learning aims to alleviate the racist at worst and unhelpful at best requirements for Adult Education put forth by the Texas Education agency.

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Broken Conversations was created to provide a platform for women of color with a space to learn, express and mobilize about issues they face. The organization has its own podcast with a mission to foster an environment based on a three-part process of awareness, accessibility and accountability.

Joshua’s Blueprint addresses the issues of bullying, dissmissal, and ignorance of LGBTQ bullying, harrassment and samegender sexual assalt by campus police, the student body, and administration. Through his work, Joshua hopes to build an inclusive and supportive base that would actively stand against bulling to our LGBTQ community across the Florida University system. Starting at UCF, he is creating an Ally Project, which will make the allied community on campus visible through a photo and video campaign. He hopes to create an online space to spread this project through the Florida University system.

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Regulators Basketball is a multi-tiered program designed to provide a safe, fun and healthy place for New York City’s underserved youth to engage with the sport of basketball, using the game to create new opportunities for adolescents to develop vital life skills that will lay the foundation for their future.

Jonathan Jean-Pierre was a student and former member of the varsity rowing team at Lehigh University. He worked towards a dual major in global studies and Africana studies, with a minor in mass communications and political science. After graduation, Jonathan wants to join Teach for America to tackle the education inequality and homophobia in classrooms throughout America. From his upbringing and experiences in schools, he originally believed that there was no such thing as a great teacher. As he got more involved with after school programs in athletics and Teach for America, he realized that teaching was not easy, the best teachers have to go beyond their job descriptions to change the lives of the students that they teach. While at the second annual Nike LGBT Summit, Jonathan had the opportunity to voice his own personal struggles and challenges that LGBT athletes have to deal with on a regular basis.

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Stephanie envisions Providence public schools with comprehensive sexual health education for all eighth graders in the city. She is working to build a program at Brown University that partners with groups from other nearby universities to provides sexual health education for middle school and high school students in the area. Her vision is that all facilitators will be college students.

YP4 Fellows at Florida A&M University and Florida State University partnered to work on issues of higher education in the state of Florida for their Blueprints for Social Justice. At the time the state was facing the implementation of a Block Tuition bill, which would implement significant budget cuts and could force graduation from state universities to occur within four years, thereby preventing students from pursuing work opportunities or internships during their studies. The Florida YP4 Fellows saw this as a crippling blow to public higher education in their state and mobilized to prevent the passage of this legislation. They kicked off their action plan with a Young People For training March 18-19th, 2005 to educate their community about and heighten awareness surrounding this proposed bill. Through trainings on advocacy techniques, Public education issues, the supreme court, and messaging tactics, the YP4 Fellows attempted to show how the Florida legislature has unfairly targeted higher education with disproportionate budget cuts and how these cuts may limit the accessibility of higher education in the state. The students coordinated with local media and partnered with progressive organizations on campus to garner support for their cause and to mobilize students to be a part of their efforts.

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Maxine Jimenez was born in the Philippines and has lived in Los Angeles, California. Her passion for social issues was ignited and inspired by her school’s environmental club advisor, Karla Johnson, Peace Over Violence’s Melodie Kruspodin, and ACE’s very own Rochelle Younan-Montgomery. Aside from doing work to help make her community and school a more sustainable place, she hopes to inspire others along the way. Her many interests have included hiking, working out, yoga, discovering scenic views, reading, singing, and trying new experiences.

The Center for Civic Engagement and Young People For, a project of the People For the American Way Foundation, have joined forces to sponsor the CYnergy Fellowship program for high school students from the El Paso Community.

DeAngelic Johnson was a student at Paul Quinn College where she studied Mass Communications. On campus, she held two leadership roles and served as the Secretary to both organizations. She has enjoyed being involved in various engagements in her community, such as working closely with youth and young adults teaching literacy and forming events to help stop Mass Incarceration. As an alumnus of YP4, DeAngelic hopes to gain ideas to better her community and build stronger relationships for development of awareness.

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Regennia Johnson attended the University of Oklahoma where she majored in Broadcast Journalism with a minor in Spanish and African American Studies. She is most passionate about issues relating to racial and social justice and has plans to dedicate her life as an activist for the African American community. Regennia is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., past OU Lead Delegate for Big XII Council on Black Student Govt., and past president of the OU Chapter of National Association of Black Journalist. She also worked at the Urban League of Greater Oklahoma City as an Advocacy Specialist and Records Clerk. She was a tutor on campus, alcohol peer educator, and a teaching assistant for transitioning courses. Regennia co-organized a group of OU students to travel to Ferguson, Missouri and helped with their Election Day duties. She is passionate about being a part of change and believes that the events in Ferguson (and now many other cities) have rekindled a fire to an unanswered question that American Society has tried to ignore for years. She was a former press intern the U.S. Senate through the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Ultimately Regennia plans to become a political pundit and address disparities in the African American community by virtue of economics, education, health, housing, and the criminal justice system. in 2015, Regennia served as the alumni program Intern where she worked with YP4’s alumni board and the alumni department.

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Eli Johnson holds a Masters in Social Work, with a specialization in policy analysis and community organizing. They are a graduate of Bowling Green State University’s social work program and a former president of the LGBTQ+student organization on BGSU’s campus. Eli has worked with LGBTQ+ folks for over served five years. They are passionate about working with marginalized communities and doing social justice work, specifically uplifting Trans, and gender non-conforming youth. Eli was also an organizer with The Ohio Student Association, working at a statewide level around social and civil issues. They also finished an LGBTQ+ resource guide for OSU students and surrounding Columbus citizens.

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BLUEPRINT: Ensuring student success in Houston. The University of Houston YP4 Fellows worked to increase the number of students who graduate from Yates High School and are able to advance on to college in order to decrease the poverty and unemployment surrounding UH. The YP4 Fellows formed an after school program featuring tutoring hours, college enrichment activities, and speakers to motivate students in their quest to graduate high school. The Fellows collaborated with: the UH Metropolitan Volunteer Program to find tutors, the UH Scholars Enrichment Program to hold college enrichment activities, and various education agencies in the Houston area to find motivational speakers for the students. The Fellows also held a FAFSA workshop once a month for students with questions regarding the application.

The A(rt) Space seeks to create a safe space for Black and Latinx youth (aged 14-21) to come live in their full truths. The A Space is for Black and Latinx youth to come to hone and develop their skills as artists, develop themselves professionally, and develop themselves spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. The A Space is not only interested in the growth of these youth as artists but as whole human beings who will be going out into the world creating change and disrupting spaces. It is important that youth who access the A Space not only feel as though artistic knowledge is being poured into them but that love, wisdom, and life skills are as well. We at the A Space hope to empower Black and Latinx youth to use their art in whatever medium it is to create change and disrupt the world.

The Night War is a graphic, fictional, and fantastical world designed to discuss topics African Americans and people of color who share similar histories of marginalization, otherness, and multiple identities.

Amber’s Blueprint assisted in the implementation of HIV/AIDS community programs through which people could learn about the effects of HIV/AIDS, especially on specific population groups that are disproportionately affected by the disease, such as African-American women. Participants observed how the community was addressing the issue and improved on this through direct service, inspiring active citizenship among participants.

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BLUEPRINT: Climate Change Compact at Stanford University. Stanford University YP4 Fellows worked with Campus Climate Challenge to call for a strong University commitment to the challenge of climate change, and to catalyze the institution-wide changes that will fulfill those commitments. They worked to push Stanford to become a principal signatory to the Campus Climate Change Compact by the end of the 2006 academic year, put the plan into effect by the 2007, and made measurable strides in implementation of on-campus renewable energy generation by the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year.

Sam Jones-Darling is a junior majoring in Political Science at Eastern Michigan University where he serves Student Senator in Student Government and as a Resident Advisor in Housing. He is originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, he was educated in public school until the 9th grade when he dropped out and sought self-education earning a GED in 2014. He attended Grand Rapids Community College before coming to Eastern Michigan University. Sam is a first generation college student and identities as a queer person of color. Sam is a fellow from the 2015 class and is passionate about LGBTQ inclusion and educational justice; these passions have driven him to serve on the several statewide boards including the HIV Materials Review Panel for the Michigan Department of Education. He has previously served as the Michigan College Democrats statewide political director and served a term as a county officer. He specializes in rural community outreach and integrating moderate viewpoints into a social justice framework. He currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the City of Ypsilanti Human Relations Commission and a Officer At-Large for the EMU Interfaith Coalition. Sam has attended Grand Rapids Community College and majored in Political Science.

Born and raised in Milwaukee WI, Keyla Jones-Rosa has a passion for volunteering, community involvement, and sustainability practices. Keyla was a Political Science and Public Administration student at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse. She was involved in numerous campus organizations such as the Black Student Unity and Rainbow Unity. In April 2014, Keyla was competitively elected to the County Board and served as the County Board Supervisor for the 5th district in La Crosse, WI. Additionally, she served on the Health and Human Services Board and the Sustainable Lax Commission. Keyla hopes to obtain a law degree and Ph.D. in political science.

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Olugbenga spent a significant portion of his college career discussing and addressing educational inequities. As a Providence resident and student at Brown, service paved the pathway for him to address educational equity these dual domains. Olugbenga has provided college guidance and access to students at a local high school, built stronger connections between families and schools with work at Providence’s school department, and was a bilingual Spanish tutor in an elementary school. Olugbenga has also served his peers on campus as a Peer Advisor and a Department Undergraduate Group leader for Brown’s Education Department. Olugbenga recognizes that direct service does not solely address root causes of educational inequity. He has developed policy knowledge and skills to complement his service, leading Brown students into a week-long immersion into education policy in RI, and dreams of a world where equitable education is available to all.

The Massachusetts corrections system was once the leader in preparing incarcerated individuals for their return to communities, but in recent years, there has been little state support. Funding for education and service programs that have a proven record of reducing recidivism have decreased. In 2002, more than 2,000 incarcerated individuals participated in a college course; in 2010, only 320 were enrolled. In recent years, the prison education line item was eliminated from the state budget entirely. This lack of support has placed reentry solely on the backs of the Department of Corrections, and has severed the relationship between incarcerated individuals, the families that support them, and the communities in which they reenter. In response to this, Pierre and other students of the Amherst College Inside-Outside program have worked together to create what we believe is a positive Blueprint for successful reentry. The goal of this 90-day project is to offer incarcerated men at the Hampshire County House Of Correction the opportunity to reenter society. They are working with reentry staff and other resources agencies to help with their transition and build the foundation they need to succeed in their recovery and begin the journey towards living a healthier life. It is Pierre’s and his peers’ hope that these efforts may be improved upon and serve as a reentry model that brings together individuals, families and communities in other communities

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Denea Joseph was a student of African-American Studies and Public Affairs Minor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Denea was born in Belize, Central America and immigrated to the United States at the age of seven years old. Denea aspires to be an attorney, seeking to advocate on behalf of the rights of those who have been largely marginalized and oppressed. At UCLA, Denea has been active in the Undergraduate Student Association (USAC) where she’s been a Presidential Intern and a staff member in the External Vice President’s office. Denea is a large proponent of educational equity and believes that education has the ability to bridge the disparities that continue to persist in the world. As a result, Denea has worked on campaigns such as Fund the UC, IGNITE (Invest in Graduation Not Incarceration, Transform Education), and Prop 13 reform to address issues of affordability and accessibility in higher education. Denea has taken her activism outside the UCLA campus by attending conferences such as the Student of Color Conference (SOCC), Student Lobby Conference (SLC), National Grassroots Legislative Conference (LegCon), and the “May Lobby” conference where she’s lobbied elected officials and met with UC Regents to voice the needs of students.”

Pierre was a Political Science major at Amherst College and the Director of the Amherst College Roosevelt Institute, a student-driven public policy organization that develops and advocates millennial ideas for change. In the past, Pierre has served as lead fellow for the statewide Roosevelt Project: Blueprint for a Millennial Massachusetts, creating a roadmap for a progressive future for the Commonwealth. He has a passion for public service, especially using the tools of government to improve people’s everyday lives. His research revolved around studying policy diffusion dynamics as a means to regulate guns in America’s cities.

Regina was a Political Science major at Florida State University, where she served as the Vice President of the campus chapter of Dream Defenders, an organization of black and brown ally youth dedicated to fighting systemic injustice. She was the Outreach Coordinator for the Center for Participant Education, a free university that provided a forum for progressive issues through classes.

April Joy worked to increase the Filipino community of San Francisco’s awareness regarding health concerns affecting them, and assist them in overcoming the mindset of poor health being inevitable in order to work towards healthier lifestyles.

Hendy is a graduate of Bethune-Cookman University, where he earned a BS in Business Administration. After graduation, he began fervently engaging the progressive causes close to his heart. Since graduation, Hendy has authored 4 inspirational books of poetry and founded ‘Poinciana Hope’ a non-profit organization promoting lifestyles of environmental sustainability. Hendy has been a Program Director at KidsRock After-School Company and has had a great time leading his team at Poinciana Hope. Hendy is passionate about the environment and equal education opportunities.

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Gianna Judkins was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and attended Howard University where she majored in Legal Communication. Gianna’s future plans upon graduating are to attend Law School to pursue a Juris Doctorate while also pursuing a Master’s in Education Policy. Her ultimate career goal is to be a game-changing political maverick who will one day serve this nation as a White House Advisor. Lastly, Gianna believes in the power of young people and in being the change that you seek. She centers her life around a quote given by First Lady Michelle Obama during the First Lady’s Bowie State University commencement address, “Be an example of excellence for the next generation and do everything you can to help them understand the power and purpose of a good education.” The First Lady’s example of excellence was one that Gianna hopes to achieve while also making a substantial, impactful and lasting change in her community. Gianna carries the Howard University motto of “Truth and Service” wherever she goes and looks forward to upholding those values as a 2016-2017 YP4 Fellow.

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Capitol BLOC is a coalition of current and former legislative staff of color that advances the recruitment and retention of people of color at the Washington State Legislature. This can include through direct recruitment, a POC mentorship program, implicit bias training for employers, etc.

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Nikila’s Blueprint, Student Voice Live, provides students with the tools to exercise their voices, positioning them to be the champions of bridging the partisan gap in education. She does so by bringing together stakeholders to ensure the student voice is heard and that students have a seat at the table. Student Voice Live reached six continents through live stream and satellite summits happening in schools around the world. This summit, created by students for students, is to empower people around the world to make their voices heard and create real, lasting change in education.

Areeba Kamal was a student at Mount Holyoke College, where she studied computer science, international relations, and Mandarin Chinese. She was a proud member of the All Leadership Team for the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network and served as the President of Kuch Karo: Pakistani Students for Change. She wrote frequently about her experiences as an international student, blogs periodically on political and social affairs for a variety of forums, drinks obscene amounts of Pakistani chai and sang with a wonderful women’s choir in the Pioneer Valley. She believes staunchly in the power of empathy and resilience and is a fan of all things interdisciplinary.

BLUEPRINT: Organizing for Fairness at University of Central Florida. In order to create a more tolerant and inherently equal environment at their university, the University of Central Florida YP4 Fellows and their gay-straight alliances organized a Same-Sex Hand Holding Day on their campus. The event was designed to encourage people of the same sex to hold hands as they marched across campus to the office of the president to demand that sexual orientation be included in the schools non discrimination policy and that the university offer domestic partnership benefits to gay employees. The YP4 Fellows efforts helped to turn out over two hundred students, faculty, staff and community members to the march. After the event, they organized a postcard campaign that led to hundreds of students mailing postcards to encourage the University President to support fairness. The event was a huge success and was covered in the campus paper, regional paper, and by the local news. In the face of media pressure, the president of the university endorsed adding sexual orientation to the schools non discrimination policy.

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Tory Kappel attended the University of Oklahoma and worked toward her degree in microbiology. She is originally from Southside Oklahoma City, where she participated as a social media and blog content editor for a community organization Making HERstory. Her passion for feminism and cultural differences strives for change and awareness in South OKC and society as a whole.

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Inspired by YP4’s Power, Privilege, and Oppression Workshop, Omar is using his Blueprint to develop a similar workshop at UNC Chapel Hill for students, staff, and professors. The workshop, centered on racism, is designed to raise awareness and promote understanding of oppressive structures to encourage respectful discussions of diversity and to further participants’ abilities to reflect on their own privilege within the community. Too often, peers and even professors dismiss crucial policies like Affirmative Action, and Omar hopes his work will lead to a UNC campus that is more open and willing to engage in these difficult conversations. He envisions through classes and discussions on campus, students and professors will become more understanding and address issues of power, privilege, and oppression more seriously.

Power, Privilege, and Oppression
Inspired by YP4s Power, Privilege, and Oppression Workshop, Omar is using his Blueprint to develop a similar workshop at UNC Chapel Hill for students, staff, and professors. The workshop, centered on racism, is designed to raise awareness and promote understanding of oppressive structures to encourage respectful discussions of diversity and to further participants’ abilities to reflect on their own privilege within the community. Too often, peers and even professors dismiss crucial policies like Affirmative Action, and Omar hopes his work will lead to a UNC campus that is more open and willing to engage in these difficult conversations. He envisions through classes and discussions on campus, students and professors will become more understanding and address issues of power, privilege, and oppression more seriously.

Jasper believes that effectively treating depression is impossible without involving survivors of depression and taking their unique histories into account. Their Blueprint, Define Depression, aims to empower survivors of depression to own their histories with all parts of their identities, including race, history of mental illness, gender identity, sexuality, and more. Define Depression will be a weekend-long conference in the fall of 2014 where young survivors will come together in an effort to support each other in fighting for the access, resources, and support they need in their communities. Participants will learn effective tactics for whatever social justice initiative they plan on pursuing, whether it be demanding gender inclusive locker rooms at their school’s gym, fundraising to provide free access to supplies for art therapy, or launching an education campaign around ableist language. Define Depression will engage participants on the topics that matter to them and provide relevant training materials on fundraising, base-building, and messaging. Jasper hopes the conference will help these survivors find strength, will, and determination in their stories rather than weakness.

BLUEPRINT: Campus Climate Challenge at Temple University. YP4 Fellows at Temple University worked with the Sierra Club Student Coalition to engage in the Campus Climate challenge. They were able to sign up young Philadelphians to embrace the idea of wind power in their homes and pushed the University to adopt a variety of energy saving policies.

Jasper works to improve the standard of living for the queer community, both on and off campus. At Bard, they headed the Queer Straight Alliance, providing a safe, supportive environment and fun events for people of all sexual orientations and genders. Outside of school, they have worked on two marriage equality campaigns: Maine in 2012 and Rhode Island in 2013. Jasper wants to help foster community involvement at Bard year-round by connecting Bard students to the issues they’re passionate about.

Misha is dedicated to helping students gain access to financial literacy information regardless of their class, gender or socioeconomic status. Misha believes that such knowledge would not only help students become financially independent but would also help students understand the implications of educational budget cuts in addition to larger economic issues like healthcare and faulty lending practices. In the end, Misha believed that higher levels of financial literacy would spur more community involvement in matters that may have otherwise been overlooked due to a lack of knowledge on the issue.

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