The Rockefeller Brothers Fund recently released a report reviewing their youth civic engagement grant initiatives (including 5 in the Bay Area). It is an interesting look into the reflective process of a funder and it includes interesting and compelling arguments highlighting the need for expanded youth civic engagement opportunities:
“If the best solutions to problems are found by those most deeply affected by them, then low-income youth and young people of color must have a place at the civic table, locally and nationally. Yet, many youth civic engagement efforts focus on college campuses and/or community service strategies, thus leaving low-income youth—who cannot afford to go to college and have less time to volunteer—with fewer opportunities to engage. At the same time, many of the programs targeted to low-income young people of color approach the young people as problems to be fixed, rather than as resources to be tapped. A youth civic engagement strategy that creates space for low-income, young people of color to be powerful can transform views of these young people from problems into valuable contributors—itself a necessary condition for participatory democracy.”
To read the full report, click here: http://www.rbf.org/usr_doc/RBF_Youth_Civic_Engagement_Grantmaking_Strategic_Review.pdf
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Nate Ivy
Service-Learning Lead CalServe Region 4 | http://calservenetwork.org
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