Since 2005, Girls Incorporated of Alameda County (Girls Inc.) has provided high-quality service-learning opportunities to high school girls advocating to change their underserved and diverse communities for the better. The current Advocating Change Together (ACT) Project is an after-school program that follows on the success of the Girls Advocacy Project, a three-year program that confirmed that teens would commit to and sustain a multi-year project that both develops their own knowledge and leadership capacity and also produces real results in the community. These past groups of youth have completed significant and sustainable community change projects, including starting a series of annual sexual health fairs at local high schools, developing Youth Advisory Boards at local clinics serving teenagers, and organizing a Nutrition Policy Group of youth and community stakeholders that is strengthening a school district's well-intentioned but not very youth-friendly nutrition guidelines. For the 2010-2011 program year, Girls Inc. will use funds from the State Farm Youth Advisory Board to support the work of two teams of the ACT Project that are working to alleviate and prevent societal disasters. The youth participants will assess and address issues like obesity prevention, physical fitness, violence prevention, and/or other societal inequities that affect the low-income communities of color in the East Bay. The project will enable 24 ACT participants to hone their advocacy and public speaking skills, visit with policymakers in the State Capitol and local government, assess the needs in their communities, and design and develop a sustainable youth-led service-learning project that addresses the root cause of the most pressing issues in their cities. These projects have the potential to reach more than 5,000 school and community members through community forums and policy change work. More specifically, in the 2010-2011 ACT program year, a group of 12 dedicated young women in East Oakland will complete the third and final year of community change work. These ACT participants have been working together since Fall 2008. During the 2010-2011 school year, this Oakland team will implement a youth-led community change project focused on a specific health disparity. Currently in their second year, participants are narrowing their focus among topics that the Girls Research Project and public health officials have identified as the most pressing health disparities affecting their community: disproportionate rates of violence, obesity, asthma, and poor physical fitness, as well as unsafe neighborhood conditions. The requested grant would also support a new, second team of ACT participants in the neighboring community of San Leandro as they begin learning what it means to be a community advocate. This Team will build on and sustain the work of a school district Nutrition Policy Group organized by a previous team of ACT participants.

	Updates
Project Home No Updates Posted