Local Initiatives for supporting and developing social capital and organizational resources

People agree that "youth are the future" but, for many contemporary youth, it's difficult to see "over the horizon" of day-to-day life to imagine what possibilities the future might hold. Talents and skills are turned to different purposes, or lost in the shuffle of life – responding to exigencies of daily life.

Bored teens who can think of nothing better than rehearsing their anger over how their life is going, and then lashing out, are senseless tragedies, born out of youth anomie, and are not unique to a given urban environment. Teens frightened by conflict in the community around them and in national political life need support to break out of situations where they feel isolated with no direction to go. Wherever they occur – these problems youth face in transitioning into adult life all are signposts of the need for revitalized visions of true community development – not just "creating jobs", or new park and recreation facilities, but for nurturing dreams of community vibrancy, possibilities for living and collaborating together, and for changing the ways in which schools, educators, and community action groups can support that vision.

Resources are needed inside the school system and out in the community to provide youth with opportunities to explore personal, social, and career development and discover personally-rewarding ways to be engaged in community civic life. Building civic engagement requires more than voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns, it requires ongoing leadership development, efforts to inform and engage youth in politics and policy advocacy, and developing sustainable opportunities for engaging new upcoming leaders. Some of the projects we have supported or participated in include:

• For schools (or for after school programs), mobilizing youth to explore and engage in new ways to view themselves and their peers and their community; to empower them to express their concerns and hopes – to envision a future that's more than going step by step through a predictable narrow tunnel, taking control to enable a future they themselves shape. The Working Group's Not in Our Town and Not in our School initiatives foster active engagement in school communities; La Clinica de La Raza's in-school counseling services support discussion of what’s happened, what’s possible, and how to bridge the gaps – how to take control. Radio Bilingüe’s support for new young journalists is another ongoing strand in leadership development we’ve been proud to support over the years.

• For youth out of school or young adults wanting to go onward and upward in careers – youth leadership and mentoring programs focusing on developing 21st century skills, developing or retooling entrepreneurial skills, and applying them to projects or activities that can help shape and sustain positive life directions. The SF Bay area’s Community Technology Network (CTN – Bay Area) engages youth in mentoring seniors, and each other, in developing and making use of technology skills to build community. E4FC support for our communities’ immigrant youth going forward into medical school and into other health careers is one such program we’ve supported which has had spectacular success. CBDIO's study of 12 families in the central valley highlights the issues that have to be faced to empower youth to break out of a cycle of poverty showed the human face of immigrant families. At UC Berkeley, small stipends for special projects have helped DREAMers to explore civic engagement and, at CBDIO, support for indigenous immigrant youth to move onward into community college life and 4-year colleges has given new hope to program participants.

• Practically speaking, undocumented immigrant youth cannot move onward and upward in their lives without employment authorization. Our support for the Central Valley Immigrant Integration Collaborative’s (CVIIC) ongoing assistance to DACA applicants and recipients since the program’s inception provides new pathways, new hope for many.

• Our support for policy work by the National Skills Coalition and the Migration Policy Institute on improving workforce skills development services for immigrants has contributed to these organizations’ work nationally, and in California, to make equitable access to WIOA-funded employment training programs a possibility—through innovative pilots.