THE ROOTS INITIATIVE (2004)

Launched in 2003, the Roots Initiative is a three-year capacity building initiative focused on organizational development, network development, and the creation of field building, standard practices and tools. Roots engages a cadre of 10 youth organizing groups from across the country, each of which receives multi-year general support grants.

2004 Roots Initiative Grants Awarded:

TOTAL: $350,000

Boston-Area Youth Organizing Project Boston, MA
To support and expand training and campaign work, including the creation of an Institute for Youth Leadership & Organizing to formalize training and share best practices with other groups, and the creation of a Young Organizing Fellow Program to work with members as they graduate.
$35,000

Californians for Justice California (Statewide)
To support intergenerational youth organizing in CFJ's statewide Campaign for Quality Education, involving local education reform efforts in San Diego, Long Beach, Fresno, San Jose and the East Bay; and to build youth power to stop the high school exit exam and advance a proactive state-level change in the areas of teacher quality and school funding.
$35,000

Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment Greenville, SC
To support a two-year project to reduce racial disparities in public schools; strengthen key program components, especially youth leadership development; incorporate youth organizing more fully in CAFÉ; and build relationships between African American and Latino youth.
$35,000

One Nation Enlightened/Students for Justice Denver, CO
To support youth organizing staff for Students 4 Justice, a youth-led, direct action organization that trains youth organizers and identifies youth leaders in Denver's African-American, Mexican/Chicano/Latino, American Indian, and Asian/Pacific Islander community to fight for racial justice in public education in their inner city high schools and neighborhoods
$35,000

Kids First! Oakland, CA
To strengthen Kids First!’s ability to achieve lasting systems changes in Oakland’s public schools by empowering high school aged youth to build an active student membership base; increase student and parent decision-making power in schools; and work in partnership with adult allies to advance community-defined education reforms.
$35,000

Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Coalition Bronx, NY
To support the work of Sistas and Brothas United for issue organizing on education, land use and quality of life campaigns to secure tangible community improvements; develop the leadership skills of its members; build the civic participation of several hundred neighborhood teenagers; and contribute to larger movements for a more just society.
$35,000

Philadelphia Student Union Philadelphia, PA
To support the work of empowering young people to transform Philadelphia’s public schools into places that ensure all young people a quality education, and especially in playing a lead role in the fight for equitable funding and in the restructuring of Philadelphia’s high schools.
$35,000

Sisters In Action for Power Portland, OR
To support the development of the leadership and organizing skills of low-income women and girls of color through a three pronged organizing model, involving: Issue Campaigns; Leadership Development; and Modeling the Vision, a philosophy for self and community transformation.
$35,000

Southwest Youth Collaborative Chicago, IL
To support the Generation Y project, a youth organizing initiative currently working on its Higher Learning Campaign, focused on racial justice issues in Chicago’s public schools.
$35,000

Youth Organizing Communities Los Angeles, CA
To support building a power base through youth organizing and leadership development in East Los Angeles schools and to strengthen the development of its media activism and training component to popularize the message of educational justice.
$35,000

NATIONAL GRANTMAKING

TOTAL: $200,000

2004 Grants Awarded:

CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities Bronx & Chinatown, NY
To support CAAAV to expand its base of youth and community members; deepen the involvement and development of current youth organizers; and advance its grassroots campaigns to build the power of the Southeast Asian refugee community in the Bronx and Manhattan's Chinatown community.
$20,000

Chicago Youth United Chicago, IL
To support CYU's citywide efforts to unite youth from the North and South sides of Chicago to gain leadership skills and demand change in their communities around issues of school discipline and security.
$10,000

Coleman Advocates San Francisco, CA
To support Youth Making a Change's youth led advocacy and organizing campaigns on juvenile justice reform - alternatives to detention and reducing the criminalization of students while increasing support services.
$20,000

Concerned Citizens for a Better Tunica County Tunica, MS
To support Tunica Teens in Action to continue organizing around local and statewide public education policies in Mississippi.
$20,000

Desis Rising Up and Moving Jackson Heights, NY
To support Youth Power! And its youth-run media program, Desi Reel Newz to develop the leadership of low-income South Asian and Muslim new immigrant youth, and to support the launching of the youth-led "Education not Deportation" campaign.
$10,000

FIERCE New York, NY
To support the Save Our Space Campaign against gentrification and police violence on the Christopher Street Pier and in the West Village of New York City that adversely affects youth who are of color and/or LGBTSTQ and/or homeless.
$20,000

Lummi CEDAR Project Bellingham, WA
To support the implementation of its Youth Organizing Initiative that offers opportunities for Native youth to learn how to use their tribal political process as a means to exercise their leadership and hold tribal government accountable to the needs of youth on the reservation.
$5,000

Padres Unidos Denver, CO
To support Padres Unidos' youth initiative, Jovenes Unidos, and its Right to Learn campaign which includes efforts to reform North High School as a replicable model for other inner-city schools; to allow undocumented students to go to college at in-state tuition rates; and to build a campaign to end the school to jailhouse track.
$10,000

Sistas on the Rise New York, NY
To support the efforts of young mothers and women in the Bronx to raise consciousness, build sisterhood and take action for social change on school and community issues.
$10,000

Southwest Organizing Project Albuquerque, NM
To support SWOP’s Youth Rights Campaign, which engages youth in cultural, organizing, and leadership development and is currently focused on efforts to change citywide youth criminalization policies.
$20,000

Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice Bronx, NY
To support YMPJ’s organizing work on police reform and environmental justice.
$10,000

Youth United for Community Action East Palo Alto, CA
To support YUCA's Higher Learning program, a program which provides East Palo Alto youth an opportunity to work on environmental and economic justice issues.
$20,000

Youth Organizers United New York, NY
To support YOU's campaign, Hit the Schools/Hit the Streets, which focuses on the failure of New York City's public high schools to implement a required HIV/AIDS education program for every student.
$15,000

Youth United For Change Philadelphia, PA
To support the leadership development of 125 low income youth and their work around education reform addressing the school district of Philadelphia's Secondary Education Movement and YUC's Small Schools Campaign.
$10,000