Central Valley Initiative
A collaborative initiative between YIF and the Central Valley Partnership's Escuelas Si! Pintas No! Youth Organizing for Equal Justice and Education
The initiative seeks to support youth throughout the Central Valley to investigate, document, and actively address the relationships between student performance, school drop-out/push-out rates, lack of access to opportunity, and the expansion of the juvenile/prison industrial complex. It seeks to explore societal perceptions of youth/adults of color who have had run-ins with school disciplinary policies and/or the law as well as shed light on the media's role of perpetuating stereotypes and false assumptions about people of color that seem to penetrate the human spirit of society and inculcate a culture of fear. The initiative's central argument is that schools and society are not effectively addressing the needs of people of color and instead are pipelining people of color into the juvenile justice/prison system, in which there is disproportionate minority confinement, disparate treatment, and major funding dollars to keep people suppressed.
Youth In Focus seeks to utilize the tool of action research as a method to develop critical consciousness with communities of color as well as decision-makers and other members of society by exploring the issue of racism within our society, in particular with the juvenile justice/prison system and schools. By doing so, the true needs of youth/adults of color who live in marginalized communities are illuminated and a critical but compassionate voice is mobilized in order to struggle for improved policies and systems that could shift power and provide more opportunities for poor folk.
