Youth Building Social Justice

What Ideas do you want the participants to take away?
Goals of the workshop:
1. Define Imperialism, Globalization, Capitalism and Communism
2. Find out who benefits from the war: US Imperialism
3. Connect imperialism and capitalism to the destruction of poor people and people of color
around the world and come up with concrete ways to fight imperialism in your hometown.

How does your event connect to the USSF Crosscutting Themes?
The Youth Building Social Justice theme connects with the USSF Crosscutting themes through utilizing popular education and interactive activity to teach a complex theme of Imperialism to other youth organizing groups around the nation. The workshop will also be very engaging and interactive, where the youth will be able to learn Imperialism in a fun way. Participants will be able take components of the curriculum and tools from different campaigns to their own communities and apply what they learn through their local neighborhoods.

How will the participants be engaged?
This workshop will require participants to be actively involved. They will be separated into small groups in which they will be asked to build structures out of pieces of paper. Facilitator will give directions to the group and follow up the activity with processing questions.

What language will your activity be conducted in?
English.

Will you provide oral interpretation? Will you provide equipment for interpretation?
We are open to having others (not AYPAL) provide oral interpretation and equipment for interpretation, but AYPAL will not have oral interpretation nor provide equipment.

Will you provide handouts for attendees?
Yes. In English.

Biggest Challenge our Organization faces: The youth of AYPAL through a collective process determined that they believe that one of the biggest problem facing youth in our communities right now is violence. In a youth to youth survey conducted by AYPAL of Oakland youth, over half of respondants had been victims of violence and the majority of respondants have witnessed violence. In Alameda County murder is the number one cause of death for youth.

Concrete Alternatives: More youth programs and youth jobs to prevent violence in our community.

Strategies: To get the city to increase funding for youth programs and youth jobs through building a base of support in the comunity for these demands and putting pressure on city council to prioritize community needs in the budget.

This workshop is catered to youth ages 10 to 20 years old and limited to 25-30 participants.