Urban Community Renewal

Intro

The Freechild Project believes that cities across the United States face a crisis of purpose: a are they mixing pots or homogenized, job centers or playgrounds? Young people in many communities see problems and are fighting gentrification, segregation, urban neglect and systemic racism through activism and education. In urban communities of color and low income communities, young people are fighting for better schools and living wage jobs. Other young people are working to change cities into diverse patchworks of homes, schools, and businesses, with mixed races and economies working together. 

Point to Ponder

"I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is vertical, so it's humiliating. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other and learns from the other. I have a lot to learn from other people." - Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan author.  How does Galeano's quote relate to young people and social change in urban communities? 

Resources

The following organizations, programs and publications have been identified by Freechild's youth researchers to help young people and their adult allies identify where and how urban communities are being revitalized through youth-led social change.   

Organizations

The Center for Teen Empowerment

The mission of Boston's Center for Teen Empowerment is to realize the potential of inner-city youth to build healthier and safer communities and schools. Teen Empowerment hires and trains urban youth, including at risk youth, to be community organizers. Our programs are based on the belief that urban youth represent a valuable, untapped resource and can significantly contribute to the rejuvenation of neighborhoods and local institutions.

Community Builders - Teens Turning Places Around

These examples of young people across the United States who have been successful in changing their cities.  These stories can provide inspiration to young people and adult allies who are struggling to make a difference, and trying to create public places that are comfortable for other youth and their communities - places where they have a sense of ownership and involvement.

Harlem Live!

HarlemLive is Harlem's Internet publication written, created, presented, and represented by teens in Harlem and throughout New York City.  We are a growing pool of youth with good character who have technical and communication skills and a multitude of options.  HarlemLive broadens youth's view of the world using technology and journalism while fostering understanding through diversity. Our core purpose is to to empower youth of color to be productive, creative and thoughtful leaders who will be responsible caretakers of our future.

Wiretap

WireTap is the independent information source by and for socially conscious youth across the United States. They showcase investigative news articles, personal essays and opinions, artwork and activism resources that challenge stereotypes, inspire creativity, foster dialogue and give young people a voice in the media. The WireTap Web portal provides a new generation of writers, artists and activists a space to network, organize and mobilize.

Youth Channel

The Youth Channel in New York City is an alternative to mass media created to provide equal access to all young people, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or social status. The Youth Channel strives to build confidence, establish role models, inform, educate, and entertain. It empowers youth to believe they are capable of creating change within their communities and the world. The Youth Channel is governed and programmed by youth who want to make a difference.

Active Element Foundation

This New York City organization gives money to urban youth activists. 

The Mirror Project

The Atlanta, Georgia-based Mirror Project creates, exhibits, and distributes videos that promote social, cultural, and personal awareness. A major focus of our work is teaching inner-city youth to create videos about their everyday experiences.

Listen, Inc.

Listen, Inc. in Washington DC connects urban youth with opportunities, fellowships, employment and training. Convening young leaders, activists, youth workers and youth organizers, as well as artists, academics, policy analysts, journalists and social entrepreneurs of color.

Youth Empowerment Center

Formed through a non-profit 'merger' that brought together several of the San Francisco Bay Area's strongest youth-supporting institutions to better meet the needs of the growing youth movement. The youth-supporting groups clustered together to form the YEC Support Center, which serves a broad range of youth projects with technical assistance, training and organizational development programs. YEC also committed to fiscally sponsoring grassroots youth projects that do exciting work but lack non-profit status. These projects are managed by YEC but maintain creative control over the programs and direction of their work.

Seattle Young Peoples Project

Empowers youth under 19 to create meaningful and sustained social change projects.  A highly powerful and effective program that matters.

Freedom Schools - The Black Community Crusade for Children

The mission of the Children's Defense Fund is to Leave No Child Behind^® and to ensure every child a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. CDF provides a strong, effective voice for all the children of America who cannot vote, lobby, or speak for themselves. We pay particular attention to the needs of poor and minority children and those with disabilities.

Publications

Youth in Cities: A Cross-National Perspective

This book, edited by Marta Tienda and William Julius Wilson, illustrates the common needs of youth throughout the world and makes a case for the role of youth as creative social assets and positive forces for social change.

Creating Better Cities With Children and Youth