PAST CAMPAIGNS
AND ACTIONS
Young People’s Task Force: Vision and Platform for Police-Free Schools
In July 2020, more than 400 youth leaders and organizers from across the state joined our virtual Youth Power Assembly and voted to prioritize defunding the pol(ICE) as a critical step towards abolition, and investing directly in our community-led priorities such as healing, education, and transformative justice. Following the assembly, YO! Cali partnered with Californians for Justice, Coleman Advocates, and Gender & Sexualities Alliance Network, to convene 16 youth leaders as part of the Young People’s Task Force on Police-Free Schools. This included representatives from ACLU of Southern California Youth Liberty Squad, Black Parallel School Board, Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition, Californians for Justice (Fresno and Oakland), Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth, COPE, Dolores Huerta Foundation, Fresno Barrios Unidos, GSA Network, MILPA, and Students Deserve. Through interviews with police-free schools campaign organizers and research on campaign platforms from across the state and nation, a statewide Young People’s Vision and Platform for Police-Free Schools was finalized in early 2022.
Youth Power Summer 2020
In the summer of 2020, a core group of youth leaders from nine YO! Cali steering committee organizations led the process of developing the statewide Young People’s Agenda Youth Demands Platform (https://bit.ly/yocalidemands2020). This group of youth leaders, known as the Youth Organizing! Squad, or YO! Squad, surveyed hundreds of youth leaders across the state, conducted youth focus groups, held in-depth issue interviews with 20 organizations, and reviewed demands from organizations and coalitions from across the state and nation to inform and shape the platform. Unveiled at the July 2020 Youth Power Assembly, where over 300 youth leaders and 200 adult allies gathered virtually across the state. The Youth Demands Platform calls upon state leaders and decision makers to follow the voices and demands of the most impacted young people. The key issues addressed by the platform include Educational Justice, Health Justice, Youth Justice, Immigration Justice, Economic Justice, and Youth Power.
Young People’s Agenda 2018
From all across the state young people are organizing to build political power and move our communities towards full equity, inclusion, justice and dignity for all. The Young People’s Agenda creates a youth-centered platform to amplify local organizing campaigns, articulate a shared vision for our communities and state, and advance toward the long-term agenda of building youth power through transformative youth organizing. The framework draws from issues highlighted in YVote polling, the #FreeOurDreams Youth Vision and Platform, the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color Policy Platform, and the Until We Are All Free Declaration of Unity.
Welcoming and Safe Schools for All model resolution
In the wake of the hate and fear stoked by the 2016 elections, youth organizations including Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network, Californians for Justice, RYSE Center, Khmer Girls in Action, Del Norte and Tribal Lands Building Healthy Communities, Resilience Orange County, Dolores Huerta Foundation, and InnerCity Struggle worked with the Advancement Project and Movement Strategy Center to win a model resolution on Welcoming and Safe Schools for All. The resolution provided a holistic model that school districts and other local education agencies used to develop their own resolutions and policies to provide a safe haven for students targeted by the post-election climate.