Are you older than 24, but still know a young activist? Forward them this email.

John,

The last few weeks have been heart-wrenching and painful. Infuriating and horrifying. But they’ve also been powerful and uniting. Emotional and hopeful. An unprecedented groundswell of people are coming together to confront white supremacy and envision a more just world. Young people are leading the fight, and people in power are taking notice.

At Advocates for Youth, we’ve trained thousands of young activists over the years in core skills everyone needs to launch and sustain a campaign. And so we saw our youth activists leading marches in Columbus, shaming lawmakers in Las Vegas, coordinating policy demands in Minneapolis, and providing aid to protesters in DC. We see you. We support you. We’re out in the streets with you. And we’re honored to work alongside you.

So with that in mind, we’re extending the deadline to apply to apply to be one of our Youth Activists until July 1st. Be sure to look through our many programs here, and plan to set aside time to fill out the application soon.

For 40 years, Advocates for Youth has championed youth activism - fighting for young people's rights to bodily autonomy, sexual health equity, LGBTQ health and rights, and racial and social justice. We are committed to working with young activists to overturn systems of oppression and racial injustice, and to combating the white supremacy that promotes these systems. This year's cohort will continue this work. For example:

• Our Young Womxn of Color for Reproductive Justice Leadership Council will continue its work to ensure every person’s right to choose when, if and how to parent and raise their families -- in safe communities, free from police violence and white supremacy.
• Engaging Communities around HIV Organizing (ECHO) leaders will continue to fight to end HIV criminalization and destigmatize living with HIV.
• YouthResource youth activists and leaders will still focus on supporting LGBTQ youth of color, including in their fight against transphobia and police brutality.
• Know Your IX youth activist leaders will continue their efforts to end gender-based violence without involving police or prisons.
• Abortion Out Loud activists will fight the criminalization of abortion, champion young people’s rights and drive access to abortion care in their communities.
• The Muslim Youth Leadership Council will continue to support young LGBTQ Muslims and their allies, combat anti-Blackness within the Muslim community, and work to dismantle state surveillance systems that police disproportionately use against them.
• The DC-based International Youth Leadership Council will continue to fight gender inequality, sexual health inequities and the criminalization of LGBTQ people around the globe.
• Student Organizers will continue advocating for better on-campus policies, including fighting for their schools to end contracts with local police

As always, we believe young people can and should lead. So our chosen cohorts will help inform what kind of work we do over the next year, and we hope by extending the application deadline, we’ll bring in some new activists to this intersectional work to help build the just world we all envision.

So if you or someone you know wants to be one of 130 youth activists aged 14-24 who receive training, support, and stipends to organize for sexual health & reproductive justice in your community, review our programs hereand begin to put together your application today.

In solidarity,

Kinjo Kiema
Associate Director, Youth Organizing & Mobilization
Advocates for Youth

P.S. - if you're not ages 14-24, can you forward this email to someone you think would be a good fit? Or to an organization who works with young people? We need everyone to do their part to help us build this incredible group!

Plus, we actually find that most of the people we accept were told to apply by a trusted adult, mentor or friend. So send this to someone you think is a rising star today.