YOUTH INVOLVEMENT

 

Invitation to Dream

This past February, DC VOICE launched the Invitation to Dream youth summit series – an arts-based student forum designed to address the city’s dropout epidemic and compose a student agenda for school reform. Youth from ten D.C. Public Schools and several charter schools participated in discussions about their classmates, teachers, schools and neighborhoods, and then worked with various local artists to turn their ideas into artistic presentations.  Each student also used electronic instant polling devices to respond to a series of research-based questions on school improvement.  Data from both the discussion and the electronic polling has been used to inform the Invitation to Dream report being produced in conjunction with American and Georgetown Universities.

DC VOICE will also be applying the findings and youth network created from its February 2008 Invitation to Dream Youth Summits to provide young people with a voice to effect social change.  This program will work with young people in a number of ways, including extensive outreach, field visits, and ongoing backup to support youth activists in their communities including peer-based training and experiences that open up the concepts of youth power, critical thinking about organizing, and ownership of their own advocacy and needs.

This program is based on the belief that urban youth represent a valuable, untapped resource and can significantly contribute to the rejuvenation of neighborhoods and local institutions.