Youth

Creating A Safe Haven for Black Trans Youth In Baltimore

June 21, 2021 Lawrence Burney, Okay Player. Create! Baltimore, Transgender, Violence, Youth

In late May, a crowd descended on Central Baltimore’s 6,000 square foot Ynot Lot for a day of free food and entertainment. Local artists like the contagiously candid Lor Choc, the sharp-rapping Fmb Foreign, and decorated Baltimore Club DJ Scottie B took the lot’s stage. Onlookers danced in their respective circles, many holding cloudy, ice cold bottles of water to contend with the sweltering sun. Others occupied shady spots to permanently plop down in. Just outside the Ynot were mobile stations providing confidential STI/HIV testing, as well as COVID-19 vaccines from pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer. By all accounts, the star that day wasn’t the artists onstage, but the person who facilitated the event: Iya Dammons, founder of Baltimore Safe Haven (BSH), whose leadership was clear from the outset.

Illinois Set To Become First State To Bar Police From Lying To Minors

June 3, 2021 Zack Linly, The Root. Create! Illinois, Police, Police abuse, Youth

The state of Illinois is on its way to becoming the first in the nation to bar police officers from lying to minors during interrogations. In an effort to prohibit the manipulative tactics cops often use to coerce confessions that often turn out to be false confessions—to which people under the age of 18 are especially vulnerable—the Illinois General Assembly passed in a near-unanimous vote a bill that would make incriminating statements from minors inadmissible in court if investigating officers provided “false information about evidence or leniency” while interrogating their underage suspect. USA Today reports that Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming weeks.

Documentary Sheds Light On The Role Of Race In Sex Trafficking

March 11, 2021 Ally Markovich, The Oaklandside. Educate! Police, Racism, Sex Trafficking, Trauma, Youth

On a clear night in February 2016, a group gathered in downtown Oakland for a candlelight vigil. The attendants were dressed in black; one wore a t-shirt that read “The Black Woman is God.” At the vigil, held in honor of the survivors of human trafficking, people spoke about the trauma held in Black women’s bodies. Six miles away, girls strode in stick-thin heels on a strip of International Boulevard in East Oakland known as “the walk” or “the blade,” where hundreds of teenage girls are trafficked each year. Though sex trafficking happens across the country, Oakland has been identified since the early 2000s as a hub for the exploitation of girls; that exploitation is especially visible on the strip. But the vigil called attention to a fact that’s less widely discussed—Black girls are far and away the most common victims.

The Major Struggle For The Rights Of Transgender People Is In The States

March 8, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Health Care, State Government, Transgender Rights, Youth

While the Equality Act that passed recently in the House is getting attention, the critical struggle for the rights of transgender people is taking place in state legislatures. This year, 26 states have legislation that would criminalize the provision of gender-affirming care to youth, ban transgender students from participating in athletics and more. This is an increase from 20 states last year. These bills are being pushed through by conservative Christian groups. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chase Strangio, a lawyer with the ACLU LGBT project, who is tracking the bills and working to stop them. We discuss what these anti-transgender rights bills would do, where they are imminent and what people can do to stop them.

Report: Young People In The United States Are Overrun With Student Debt

February 20, 2021 The Jain Family Institute. Educate! Debt, Education, Student Debt, Youth

Young Americans are overrun with student debt. This crisis is the culmination of waning government funding for higher education, wage stagnation, wealth inequality, and a misleading emphasis on obtaining high credentials—all leading to the financial gap between college prices and later earnings. In 2020, aggregate balances reached $1.66 trillion in 2019 dollars, 122% higher in real dollars than in 2010. Not surprisingly, the number of borrowers, the amount they owe, and the number of loans each borrower acquires, have all increased over the time period. In 2019, 18-35 year-olds with student loan debt owed nearly $35,000 on average compared to just over $28,000 (USD 2019) in 2009. Back in 2009 there were only 32 million federal borrowers; in 2019, that number swelled to 43 million.

Grace Is Out Of Jail And Back In School

November 2, 2020 Jodi S. Cohen, ProPublica. Resist! Education, Juvenile detention, Legal System, Youth

Oakland County, MI - Ten minutes before her debut and three months after she became known as the Michigan girl sent to juvenile detention for failing to do her online schoolwork, Grace* hurried into a bustling doughnut shop in suburban Detroit and plopped into a leather chair next to her mother. She straightened her headband and searched her pockets, unsuccessfully, for lip gloss. She tapped a few final notes into her phone. Then, ignoring her mother’s request to sit up straight, Grace leaned in toward her laptop and, for the first time since her case gained national notoriety as a symbol of racial inequities in the juvenile justice system, she began to speak publicly about what had happened to her.

Young Workers Hit Hard By The COVID-19 Economy

October 19, 2020 Elise Gould and Melat Kassa, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! COVID-19, Recession, Workers, Youth

Across the United States, millions of workers of all ages suffered job losses in the coronavirus-driven recession, but the economic impact on young workers has been even more intense. Not only have many young people in this country faced the harsh reality of returning to school without in-person classes at their colleges and high schools, the job prospects for those seeking employment have been particularly bleak. Historically, young people are disproportionately disadvantaged in many ways during economic downturns, but this recession has been particularly acute given the sectors of the economy that were hit the hardest.

Scheer Intelligence: For Many Young People, Socialism Is As American As Apple Pie

June 26, 2020 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialism, Podcast, Youth

In the devastating aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, many young Americans who felt betrayed by capitalism were introduced to socialism by Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns. Meagan Day, a staff writer for the popular left-wing magazine Jacobin and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), serves as an example of how the Vermont senator radicalized a generation with a platform that called for policies like Medicare for All and tuition-free college. Day credits Sanders with her decision to choose socialism when she felt the time came to “pick a side” in American politics and has since been working to understand how the socialist resurgence the Democratic candidate inspired can grow without him in the White House.

Extinction Rebellion Urges Government To Remember Children During COVID-19 Recovery

May 19, 2020 By Extinction Rebellion UK. Resist! climate crisis, COVID-19, Extinction Rebellion, Youth

In the early hours of this morning, Extinction Rebellion has covered London’s Trafalgar Square with nearly 2000 pairs of children’s shoes, with people holding a banner that reads ‘Covid today > Climate tomorrow > Act Now’. The installation urges the Government to act on the climate crisis during the coronavirus recovery to protect younger generations against the effects of an even deeper crisis that continues to intensify. The shoes send a chilling reminder to the Government to protect children and young people during the recovery from the coronavirus crisis – the generations most vulnerable to the climate and ecological emergency – and to respond with the same urgency as they have done to protect those most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

Young Climate Activists Vow To #FightEveryCrisis In Global Online Strike

April 28, 2020 Megan Rowling, NewsTrust.org. Organize! climate crisis, Climate Justice, System Change, Youth

Barcelona - Instead of taking to the world's streets to demand climate action on Friday as planned before the coronavirus pandemic, young activists from about 20 countries took to Youtube in a 24-hour broadcast to share ideas on how to fight global warming. In recent weeks, lockdown restrictions in many places have made it impossible for the Fridays For Future movement of young people to skip classes and march through cities or hold vigils outside government buildings in their usual Friday protests. As a substitute, they have been posting photos of themselves at home with their banners and placards, using hashtags such as #DigitalStrike and #FightEveryCrisis. They have also participated in webinars and video discussions to boost awareness and knowledge about tackling climate change.

Teens Convince Their Minnesota Town To Go Solar

March 12, 2020 Staff, Yaleclimateconnections.org Create! Climate Change, Minnesota, Youth

In 2018, the city of Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, made the commitment to become carbon neutral. The decision was the result of pressure from local high school students. “They felt passionate, like a lot of youth around the country do, that there is an urgency,” says Jessi Wyatt of the Great Plains Institute. “And so they brought the urgency to their city council in the form of letters...

Indigenous Youth Arrested At BC Legislature In Support Of Unist’ot’en

March 6, 2020 Staff, Unistoten.camp Resist! Electoral Politics, Indigenous Peoples, Youth

Powerful actions have continued through the week demanding that RCMP and CGL stand down. Last night five Indigenous youth leaders we're arrested inside the BC Legislature for occupying Scott Fraser's office after he refused to meet any demands regarding the removal of the RCMP and CGL from Wet'suwet'en Territory.

I’m A Youth Organizer. Stop Getting In My Way

March 6, 2020 By Maggie Di Sanza, Edweek.org Strategize! Activism, Youth

I have been a youth activist and organizer for most of my high school career, planning rallies and marches, conducting educational outreach, and lobbying against archaic legislation. Here's a pattern I've seen too often: Student advocates step out; administrators put their authoritarian foot down.

‘Kids Are Taking The Streets’: Climate Activists Plan Avalanche Of Events As 2020 Election Looms

February 5, 2020 Lee van der Voo, News.yahoo.com Resist! Climate Change, Elections, Youth

Organizers in the youth climate movement plan an avalanche of activities beginning next week, determined to make the future of the climate the major issue of the 2020 election. Capitalizing on turnout in the September climate strikes, when 6 million people worldwide turned out to demand urgent action to address the escalating ecological emergency...

‘We Are Unstoppable, Another World Is Possible!’: Young Climate Activists Storm COP 25 Stage

December 12, 2019 By Andrea Germanos, Commondreams.org Resist! Climate Change, Protests, Youth

Protesters with Fridays for Future demand world leaders at the global climate summit urgent address the planetary emergency. Young activists took over and occupied the main stage at the COP 25 climate conference in Madrid, Spain Wednesday and demanded world leaders commit to far more ambitious action to address the ecological emergency. "Nobody has ever done an action like this before," said youth climate striker Dylan Hamilton of Scotland, "the times are changing."

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