Youth

Day 2: Hundreds Of Students Protest Against PARCC Exam

March 4, 2015 Robert Browman, Nicole Perez and Jon Swedien, www.abqjournal.com Resist! Education, Student Activism, Testing, Youth

Hundreds of students in Albuquerque walked out of school for the second day in a row to protest a controversial new test. About 200 students protesting the PARCC exam walked westbound on Arenal from Rio Grande High School towards Coors Boulevard. The group planned to walk northbound on Coors to meet up with students from West Mesa High School. Rio Grande students said that students from Atrisco Heritage Academy and South Valley Academy were also marching in the group. Albuquerque Public Schools board member Steven Michael Quezada spoke to student protesters after they arrived at West Mesa. Quezada told students he shares their frustration over the PARCC exam, but leaving school was neither safe nor smart. “I basically told them that they had the right to protest. But I can’t condone you leaving campus or storming a school,” Quezada said. Quezada also told students if someone was injured on a trek to another school “that’s the news story and it’s not about your fight.”

Youth Have The Power To Rally People To Positive Change

February 21, 2015 Dr. David Suzuki, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Climate Change, Environment, Youth

When she was just 12 years old, my daughter Severn gave a speech at the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. She spoke with such conviction that delegates were moved to tears. It was one of my proudest moments as a father. More than 20 years later, Severn is the mother of two young children, and the video of her speech is still making the rounds, inspiring people around the world. Its popularity speaks to the power the young have to affect the world’s most pressing issues. More than half the world’s population is under 30, a demographic now at the forefront of international decision-making and some of Canada’s most powerful environmental changes. Across the nation, youth are thinking critically about how we can become better stewards of our vast landscapes and spectacular wildlife and protect the air, water, soil and diversity of nature that keep us healthy and alive.

We Should All Be Inspired By These Baltimore Youth

February 20, 2015 Brentin Mock, www.grist.org Resist! Baltimore, Environment, Waste, Youth

The youth of South Baltimore have scored another round in their fight to keep a mammoth waste incinerator out of their neighborhood. Baltimore County’s regional cooperative purchasing committee voted to end their contract with the company Energy Answers, which has plans to build a $1 billion solid waste-to-energy facility in the working class neighborhood of Curtis Bay. (Ever watch The Wire? Season Two? That neighborhood.) The youth organizing group Free Your Voice, made up of students who live or attend school close to the proposed incinerator site, has been mobilizing friends, neighbors, teachers, and other school administrators over the past three years toreject the waste-burning facility. As fans of The Wire may remember, Curtis Bay is already overrun with pollution-heavy industrial operations and port activity.

Balancing Being A Student With Activism

February 15, 2015 Faith Meckley, www.theithacan.org Educate! Activism, Education, Youth

We have to start asking ourselves; how is what I’m doing here relevant in a broader global context? What is my work here at IC leading to? Is my lifestyle individualistic or community focused? Our world is in crisis, and we can’t afford to get trapped in our own individual tunnels. The best way we can avoid getting boxed in is to pursue our passions. When we are immersed in the activities we truly and thoroughly enjoy, it has a tendency to put smiles on our faces that can’t help but spread to the faces of others. It is those thrilling, fulfilling moments we tend to remember, while the hours we spend laboring and fretting over an essay are recalled as an unintelligible blur. Am I telling you to blow off your education?

Campus Divestment Campaign’s Investment In Young Activists

February 15, 2015 Moira Donovan, www.rabble.ca Resist! Climate Change, Coal, Divestment, Oil & Gas, Student Activism, Youth

As with many student-led movements, divestment campaigns have been dismissed by critics in the fossil fuel industry as nothing more than naïve idealism. Some researchers have also suggested that divestment campaigns, focused as they are on investments that directly relate to fossil fuels, would have limited economic impact. The economic tethers of fossil fuels, they say, stretch throughout the economy, including to the sites of investment that some divestment movements have suggested as alternatives. Yet for the students involved, understanding divestment as a strictly economic tool misses the point. Compared to private companies or governments, says Malkolm Boothroyd of Divest UVic, universities are a realistic starting point for divestment. Just as importantly, he adds, "Universities are well respected. When a university comes out and says it is not moral to invest in fossil fuels, that creates momentum." Like the campaign for divestment from South Africa in the 1980s or tobacco in the 1990s, the current movement seeks to strip fossil fuels of their social license. For James Hutt of Divest Dal, the purpose of divestment is not just to economically undermine fossil fuels, but to promote the idea that that they're socially unacceptable.

Youth Food Justice Zine: Call For Submissions

February 12, 2015 Youth Food Justice, www.youthfoodjusticezine.wordpress.com Organize! Art, Food and Agriculture, Media, Youth

We want to include as many voices in this zine as possible! Send us your art (drawings, lyrics, slam poetry, photos, collages, rhymes, reflections etc.) and writings around food justice work. Know of any amazing youth groups doing work around food justice? Know of someone in your community that needs to be interviewed? This is your opportunity to do some multimedia investigations and send us your results. You can also help us out by sharing this call for submissions in your social media networks and in person to friends who might be interested in submitting. The goal is to make a zine that lifts up the voices of youth food justice activists as well as intergenerational narratives around youth power within the context of the United States.

Is A European Spring Coming?

February 3, 2015 Lorenzo Del Savio and Matteo Mameli, www.truth-out.org Resist! Austerity, Europe, Greece, Left, Spain, Youth

In the wake of the victory of the progressive party Syriza at the Greek general election on January 25, 2015, some have started talking about the coming of a European Spring, a democratic uprising against the political status quo in Europe. This status quo has imposed brutal austerity policies on countries like Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. These policies have protected and advanced the interests of banks, and more generally, of those holding large financial assets. They have protected and advanced the interests of large corporations. They have generated unbelievably high unemployment rates, a huge squeeze on workers' wages and an astonishing number of bankruptcies among small businesses. They have resulted in dramatic cuts to social security and public health systems. These are economic issues, but they are also moral issues. Robbing a whole generation of European youth of the possibility of finding a decent job is stripping them of their hopes and dignity.

Who Is Kymone Freeman?

January 26, 2015 Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! D.C., Ferguson, Racial Justice, Washington, Youth

Papi Kymone Freeman (guerrilla artist) is one of the leaders of #DC Ferguson, an organization devoted to exposing police terror in the Washington, DC area. Kymone, alone with Eugene Puryear, Salim Adafo and Kenny Nero have led non-violent demonstrations that have shut down major economic arteries in the nation’s capitol. Kymone is the director of the National Black LUV Festival that has since become the largest annual AIDS mobilization in Washington, DC. He has authored a collection of poetry entitled Blood.Sweat.Tears. Kymone is in the process of completing a one-man show called “Whites Only,” a show where, according to Kymone “white folks can witness an angry Black man in therapy from the sanctuary of their seat.”

Meet the ‘Radical Brownies’ – Girl Scouts For The Modern Age

January 24, 2015 Jorge Rivas, www.fusion.net Resist! Student Activism, Youth

Not all girl scouts are concerned with peddling shortbread cookies. There’s one troop of young girls in Oakland that discusses matters of racial inequality and wear brown berets in an homage to radical civil rights groups. The girls, ages 8-12, are part of the “Radical Brownies,” an edgier, younger version of the Girl Scouts, where girls earn badges for completing workshops on social protests, and a beauty workshop that celebrate racial diversity. Radical Brownies is dedicated to providing young girls of color relevant life experiences, explains the group’s co-founder Anayvette Martinez. Martinez, a community organizer, created the Radical Brownies with Marilyn Hollinquest because “there aren’t enough spaces [for young girls of color] in our society.”

Youth Are Walking Out, Shutting Down, & Building Movements

January 19, 2015 Student Nation, www.alternet.com Resist! Education, Student Activism, Youth

On January 9, undocumented students from Georgia’s Freedom University, along with student allies, protested Georgia’s ban on undocumented students at public universities by holding an integrated class at the University of Georgia in Athens. This date marked the 54th anniversary of the racial desegregation of UGA. Our class featured lectures by human rights activists Lonnie King and Loretta Ross. Undocumented students identified themselves by wearing handmade monarch butterfly wings. When the building closed, we refused to leave until our demands that UGA’s President and the Georgia Board of Regents renounce and rescind Policies 4.1.6 and 4.3.4 were addressed. At 8 PM, police arrived and arrested nine activists, including four undocumented students. We are determined to continue fighting for the human right to education.

The Children Left Behind

January 17, 2015 Debbie Nathan, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Education, Law, Youth

TAKS was administered to Texas children under the mandates of a 2001 federal law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which set a benchmark for 100-percent student proficiency in math and reading by 2014. States were required to show “adequate yearly progress” toward the goal, mostly through standardized testing. Good scores on the tests would lead to rewards for schools, administrators and teachers. Bad scores would provoke punishment, including closing schools and firing teachers. (TAKS has since been replaced by a newer and more difficult test called State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.) At the 2004 Republican National Convention, President George W. Bush broke into Texas-accented Spanish to translate “No Child Left Behind” to “No dejaremos a ningún niño atrás.”“By testing every child,” he intoned, “we are identifying those who need help.”

Peruvian Youth To Protest Against New Labor Law

January 17, 2015 TeleSur, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Labor, Law, Peru, Youth

The Peruvian youth group Dignity Collective will hold another demonstration Monday afternoon to protest against a new labor law approved earlier this month which undermines many labor rights for young workers. According to the organization, the Youth Labor Law will benefit transnational corporations, as it reduces vacation time, cuts a series of bonuses, and lowers wages. Even though the law only applies for people between the ages 18 and 24, critics expect for these corporations to fire older employees and replace them with young people to take advantage of the law. Monday’s scheduled protest follows one of the biggest protests recorded over the last 10 years when thousands of young people marched in the streets of Peru’s capital Lima on Friday.

A New Generation Reclaims MLK Day

January 16, 2015 Ms. Bullhorn, www.transformativespaces.org Organize! MLK, Racial Justice, Youth

Chicago’s young black organizers, who have mobilized with great speed and ingenuity since nationwide protests erupted in August, have been especially creative in their tactics and radical in their messaging. While some of the language employed in their chants and speak outs has included talk of indicting police officers like Darren Wilson, youth organizers from BYP 100and We Charge Genocide, among others, have also broadened the dialogue around police violence to include the language of de-incarceration, transformative justice, and calls for an all out systems change. Local activist and teacher Jerica Jurado, whose students have been involved in a number of protests in recent months, credits an already active community of young people for having brought their vision to the front lines.

The Incredible Shrinking Incomes Of Young Americans

December 6, 2014 Derek Thompson, www.theatlantic.com Educate! Living Wage, Millenials, Youth

Since the Great Recession struck in 2007, the median wage for people between the ages of 25 and 34, adjusted for inflation, has fallen in every major industry except for health care. Once you account for falling wages among young workers—if you must: "the Millennials"—many mysteries of the economic behavior of young people cease to be mysterious, such as this generation's aversion to home-buying, auto loans, and savings. Indeed, the savings rate for Americans under 35, having briefly breached after the Great Recession, dove back underwater and now swims at negative-1.8 percent.

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