We just launched a new team!! I Am Why now has a communications team focused on all things…communications.
One of our first projects will be working with I Am Why consultants to write and pitch op-eds. Several of us participated in a two-day training in February from The Op-Ed Project, and we are eager to lift up the voices of I Am Why’s young leaders. The voices of young female/gender expansive activists of color are glaringly missing from most op-ed pages and we aim to change that!
Our communications team will also be focused on helping weave together the stories and visions of our young leaders with research, policy and programming that supports these visions. Our young people have seen first-hand what’s broken with our systems—child welfare, youth legal, education, health care—and they know what needs to change.
Not surprisingly, our young activists’ visions are supported by research that centers the experiences of young people with intersectional and marginalized identities. And our incredible partners—A Long Walk Home, Artistic Noise, My Life My Choice, Progeny, Roca, Inc., Young Women’s Freedom Center, just to name a few—deliver programs and advocate for policies that help make our young activists’ vision for change a reality because they are rooted in youth leadership and opportunity.
Words matter. Voice matters. Through our new communications team, I Am Why’s young activists will be Reclaiming the Lens and creating a narrative that centers their humanity and power.
Excited to learn more? Check out this blog regularly, as it’s where our communications team will be spreading the word about our activities and sharing the perspectives and visions of I Am Why’s young leaders.
-Alondra, I Am Why program associate
