Youth Ubuntu Project

Youth Ubuntu Project

​The Youth Ubuntu Project (YUP) is a collaborative project between the Center to Support Immigrant Organizing (CSIO) & African Community Economic Development of New England (ACEDONE). Launched in 2013, YUP’s mission is to develop immigrant teen grassroots leadership in social justice efforts and build unity and solidarity among youth in Boston’s diverse immigrant communities. 

​In 2017, our youth program was newly named Youth Ubuntu Project by teens. Ubuntu is a Zulu proverb meaning “I am because you are” connecting all causes our teens and communities face. YUP is a diverse group of teens coming from Latin American,  Caribbean, Asian, and African countries living in the city of Boston. Coming together under the value of Ubuntu as a youth led program empowers and validates young people. 

Youth Ubuntu 2021

School Year 2020/2021: 

• College Readiness
• Art Activism pt. 2
• Social Justice Discussions
• 100% virtual 
• YUP EL Research 

Summer:

• Arts Activism
• Collaboration w/ CYI
• Collaboration w/ CAIR
• Field trips
  • Arboretum
  • Spectacle Island
  • SOWA art district
  • Artists for Humanity
  • The City School
• Hybrid Summer!

Youth Ubuntu 2020

School Year:

• YUP EL Research 
  • In-person & hybrid

Summer: 100% virtual 

• • Environmental Justice w/ Jack Whitacre
  • Arts Activism
  • Roots of Migration
  • Workshops
    • SIM
    • G|Code

Youth Ubuntu 2019

​A team of 6 college-aged organizing interns will help coordinate efforts of a 35-member teen leadership team with CSIO and its partner organization, ACEDONE. The goal of the 2019 summer leadership and solidarity program is to build the capacity of immigrant teens and college-aged mentors to take leadership in social change efforts. Immigrant interns and teens learn to

• ​facilitate participatory meetings,

• ​understand how to do a ‘root-cause’ analysis of social injustices,

• ​learn about different migration stories from each other,

• ​and learn about community-based social justice organizing in Boston.

​In the summer 2019 the diverse group of young immigrant leaders will:

• ​Learn about participatory facilitation practices and active listening techniques and then practice facilitation at workshops, community exchanges and other activities.

• ​Continue to implement a participatory action research project which will be the foundation for an English Learner (EL) organizing initiative in the Boston Public Schools. Teens will distribute surveys and conduct interviews with past and present EL students in the BPS, their parents and EL faculty and administrators.

• ​Organize community exchanges among African, Latin American and Chinese teens in Roxbury, East Boston and Chinatown so that immigrant teens learn about each other’s community’s history, culture, resources and struggles.

• ​Participate in issue-based workshops led by groups active in restorative justice and environmental justice.

• ​Lead workshops on anti-Muslim racism and the roots of migration with teens from partner groups Chinese Progressive Association, Hyde Square Task Force, TAG/Alerta, and others.

Youth Leadership Initiative 2018​

Participatory Action Research (PAR) Project

​Youth Leadership Initiative ​ Participatory Action Research (PAR) Project In school year and summer programs, UMASS Boston Professor Patricia Krueger-Henney facilitated the Youth Ubuntu’s Project’s participatory action research (PAR) project around English Learner programming inequities in the Boston Public Schools. Patricia facilitated weekly sessions with a total of over 70 immigrant teens develop a participatory action research (PAR) project to document challenges of BPS EL instruction and of building school climates free from xenophobia or Islamophobia. The PAR project will lead to a campaign for EL improvement in 2019.

Curricula to address xenophobia and anti-Muslim racism

​In the spring 2018, some 15 teen leaders developed the framework for teen-led curricula on the scapegoating of Muslims and undocumented immigrants for our country’s problems. Latin American and African teens developed the curricula, were trained and supported by organizers in delivering it, and conducted a pilot workshop at St. Stephens Youth program. The workshops provided students with a root cause analysis of xenophobia and Islamophobia, linking these related forms of hate.

​Today was the last Joel’ s guitar lesson (4 lessons). We decided to continue in the Band Gig School, I don’t know if we can reserve the same day and hour for the next classes in November. If You have spaces for us, can you confirm the total fees please and the last questions, you will have classes on  November 25th? Because it is Thanksgiving Holiday.As we built these projects, we continued to develop grassroots leadership skills and build solidarity among Latin American, African, Asian and Caribbean teens. Partner groups included teens from the City School, Chinese Youth Initiative, East Boston Ecumenical Community Council, Immigrant Family Services Institute (a group working mostly with Haitian youth), St. Stephens Youth Program, Youth on Board, and others. Relationship building activities included 3 daylong neighborhood exchanges among the African, Latinx and Chinese communities, where youth groups in these communities share their identities, histories, community challenges, achievements and food!

​As in previous years, we partnered closely with The City School’s Summer Leadership Program, a sister teen leadership program that tackles social justice issues broadly. CSIO teens split their time between SLP and CSIO each week during the summer.

​Finally, Youth Ubuntu Project leaders were trained and then helped lead workshops on facilitation, active listening, and root cause analysis of migration for dozens of youth.

​Our teen Youth Ubuntu Project leaders spoke at the Poor Peoples Campaign at two rallies about their campaigns in EL reform and anti-xenophobia/Islamophobia education. They received standing ovations from a statewide gathering and then state house rally, and shared the challenges of EL inequities, xenophobia/Islamophobia, and the oppressive Combating Violent Extremism (CVE) program that targets the Boston Somali community.

​Our teens helped lead the facilitation of a June 2018 Know Your Rights workshop in the JP/Roxbury Immigrant Solidarity Network, a network that includes health centers, sanctuary congregations, housing, CDC and youth organizations. The workshop brought together youth groups active in JP/Roxbury and surrounding neighborhoods to share their community’s challenges and work, and learn from civil rights advocates about their rights before ICE, FBI, and BPS police. 

​The Youth Leadership Initiative creates opportunities for immigrant youth from different communities, schools and neighborhoods to come together to identify shared challenges and take leadership to address them.

​The Youth Leadership Initiative has 3 main components:

• ​Leadership Workshops: Developing a collective understanding of the root causes of social and economic injustice in their communities and schools

• ​Relationship building: Build spaces to break down stereotypes, promote learning about community resources and build a unified passion to do something together to improve schools and communities.

• ​Involvement in Social Justice: Connect & engage youth to active youth organizing campaigns and groups that address their community’s challenges.

Summer 2017

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Summer is a whirlwind of young immigrant leadership at CSIO. 8 teens and 3 college-aged mentors learnt to facilitate participatory activities and do root-cause analysis of global migration. These youth engage African, Chinese and Haitian teens from our partners, African Economic Development of New England (ACEDONE) and Chinese Progressive Association.

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CSIO teen leaders come from a mix of ethnic backgrounds – Puerto Rican, Dominican, Japanese, Haitian, Chinese, Guatemalan and El Salvadoran. Six of the eight attend our partner BPS high school, Margarita Muñiz Academy. Vietnamese, Haitian and Mauritanian mentors are attending local colleges. These young leaders learn to run workshops and other activities with fellow immigrant teens. A key goal is to build relationships among teens from Latin American, Caribbean, African and Asian communities.

​CSIO, ACEDONE and CPA each host a community interchange so that teens can visit each other’s communities, learn about each other’s histories, struggles and development efforts – and eat great El Salvadoran, Somali and Chinese food!

A piece of our summer program is the work to build the foundation of a campaign to improve English Learner instruction in the BPS. Professor Patricia Kreuger-Henney of UMASS Boston has been helping ACEDONE and CSIO develop a participatory action research project led by Somali and Latinx youth from ACEDONE and CSIO. She has facilitated 3 workshops to engage the teens in looking at language justice in their own lives, and among their peers. We are using these workshops as the building blocks for our campaign this year.  As in previous years, we partner closely with The City School’s Summer Leadership Program, a sister teen leadership program that tackles social justice issues broadly. CSIO teens split their time between SLP and CSIO each week.

Youth Programs Academic year 2016 – 2017

​The year of the Elections shook our team of 15 Latinx and African teens to the core.

​We had originally planned to focus on an English Learner/language justice organizing effort in the Somali community to address big barriers to social and academic achievement. Yet the Elections made organizers go back to the group to address their fears and anger against being targeted for repression. Through using dialogues, story sharing and healing circles, African and Latinx youth learned about how each other was targeted and the stresses faced.

African teens shared stories about Islamophobia and Latinx teens described the attacks against undocumented and otherwise vulnerable Latin Americans. These stories made each community see how racism impacted both populations, though in different forms. Neither group of youth knew what the other faced until they heard each other. But after learning, the teens decided to put the language justice campaign on hold and organized actions and a teen speak-out to share their stories and commitment to resist attacks together. First, the teens took leadership in protests to the Trump administration threats. The teens took a strong leadership role in the People’s Counter Inauguration protest and march in January and then participated in the Copley Square rally against the ban against Muslims.

Then teens decided to hold a speak out for immigrant rights. For a month, the teens wrote and practiced songs, spoken word poems, plays, and speeches. Dual MC’s facilitated the speak out– one Latina and one African. Each of the teen leaders, some alone and some in teams, presented their poems, skits and songs to over 200 people packed into a Jamaica Plain church. 

While the event was powerful for the community and covered widely by the media, the impact on the teens themselves was most powerful. Afterwards, they shared their feelings from having worked hard to organize a public response of solidarity against xenophobia and Islamophobia, and their reactions to the day:

“We recognize the importance of being in solidarity with each other. Every step of the way, we are fighting for our Muslims sisters and brothers, for queer sisters and brothers, and for all underserved communities out there.”

After the speakout, the teens presented their pieces again at the Open Arms celebration in Roxbury and CSIO youth from the Margarita Muniz Academy helped lead a day of immigrant rights workshops at the school. Youth leaders presented some of their speakout creations, and also led workshops for dozens of students and faculty on immigrant lives and the need for justice. 

The joint leadership group returned to the EL organizing work with newfound solidarity. UMASS Boston Professor Patricia Kreuger-Henney facilitated a series of workshops to form the foundation of a participatory action research project for the immigrant youth themselves to uncover from a teen perspective the challenges that EL students face. Teens started this work, to be continued in the summer and then implemented in the upcoming school year. 

Summer 2015 Leadership Program

In the summer 2015, CSIO trained a team of 3 youth leaders from partner groups African Community Economic Development Of New Englang (ACEDONE) and Margarita Muniz Academy (MMA) in deeper facilitation skills, and shared tools for root cause analysis geared toward high school students. CSIO supported the youth to facilitate 3 trainings on root cause analysis with other immigrant and African American high school youth over the summer. 

Summer workshops reached youth from Global Potential, ACEDONE, Chinese Progressive Association, MMA and the City School. Workshops included dialogues with Haitian youth leaders and immigrant youth here about struggles and strategies for change in each country; a presentation/dialogue with immigrant youth about the legacy of African American history and struggle in Boston (this workshop was led by a Network of Immigrant and African American Solidarity Core Group member); workshops on the roots of migration with the national Hispanic Youth Leadership Association, and ACEDONE. 

The goals of the summer program are to grow the youth leaders’ participatory facilitation skills, give them the opportunity to lead workshops using popular education tools, help them cultivate a root cause analysis of migration, and expose over 100 mostly immigrant youth to root causes of migration and connections to African American struggles in the U.S. and Boston. The summer program continues CSIO’s efforts to build relationships among Latino, African, Caribbean and Chinese youth from participating grassroots organizations. Finally, our summer program is in collaboration with the City School, and the immigrant youth are learning about systemic injustice beyond race and immigration status – including an analysis around oppression regarding sexual orientation and identity, gender. These youth leaders return to their groups and schools with a heightened consciousness about how to develop relationships based on mutuality and equity, and how to challenge the ‘isms’ that they encounter.

2014-2015 Academic Year Activities

We provided 2 adapted Grassroots Leadership Institutes to youth involved with African Community Economic Development Of New Englang (ACETONE), Margarita Muniz Academy (MMA), and East Boston Ecumenical Community Council (EBECC). 

• With a team of 4 Latino youth and a youth advocate from EBECC, we planned and facilitated workshops on the root causes of global migration and how to facilitate democratic, participatory meetings. These workshops were held in East Boston in Spanish for EBECC’s high school (ASPIRING) program participants.

• With a team of 5 youth and youth organizers from ACEDONE (African community) and MMA (Latino community), we planned and facilitated 4 leadership sessions with ACEDONE’s Youth in Charge program, MMA, and Global Potential. To develop these workshops with youth leadership, we held 8 planning meetings with a multicultural youth leadership team. Youth and CSIO staff co-facilitated workshops.

Immigrant Youth Leadership Summit

We held our second annual 2015 Immigrant Youth Leadership Summit at our partner Boston Public School (BPS) school, Margarita Muñiz Academy (MMA). The Youth Summit was organized by a team of 6 immigrant youth leaders from MMA, ACEDONE and EBECC. These leaders met bi-weekly from February until May 2015 to plan and organize the summit. They developed, led and facilitated all summit activities except some done by outside presenters/facilitators. Workshops led by youth coordinators included youth leadership in Black Lives Matter/mass incarceration resistance, and what is leadership, as well as various relationship building and participatory activities. The summit drew in Youth Against Mass Incarceration, Sub-urban Justice and Chinese Progressive Association to lead workshops on ‘What is organizing,’ and youth leadership in anti-gentrification efforts.

In the above activities, CSIO helped build the capacity of the youth leaders to facilitate activities in democratic, participatory ways. The youth developed and shared youth engagement tools, adapted them to their network activities, and continued to build relationships among participating communities, groups and schools.

See the photos below from the first annual Immigrant Youth Leadership Summit 2014: