Capacity Building for Youth-Led Social Change

Posted by on July 16, 2007

CAPACITY BUILDING FOR YOUTH-LED SOCIAL CHANGE

Launched in 2000, the Collaborative Fund for Youth-Led Social Change (CFYS) grew out of an effort of funders and youth practitioners to support work at the intersection of youth development, youth organizing and gender. The Ms. Foundation was known for understanding the importance of gender in the lives of young women and men, and as one of the first foundations to promote the merging of youth development and youth organizing strategies, the Foundation found itself ready to learn and share stories about how youth organizations were combining youth development, youth organizing and gender-based programming in their work. This work was unique as it recognized that to truly engage young people requires understanding, (1) how they identify themselves; (2) the strengths (and limitations) of the organizational model; and (3) the context of the community in which the youth live. Brought together, these became powerful motivators for change; they also shaped the kinds of programs and social change work that each organization undertook. By exploring a combination of youth development, youth organizing, and identity-based work, organizations involved in CFYS discovered that creating new strategies is about more than simply adding youth organizing activities to youth development work, or adding a youth development focus to youth organizing work. This discovery has led to the exploration of new approaches to youth-led social change, including ones that: (1) Address youth-identified needs; (2) Link individual development to larger societal issues; (3) Use the arts and youth popular culture as a means of creative political expression; (4) Work more deeply and broadly with youth; and (5) Work to change power structures, societal values, and community culture.

http://www.ms.foundation.org/user-assets/PDF/Program/Book_2.pdf