Community Organizing

Community organizing is a process in which youth join with adults in their community to mobilize around an issue, create power through the joint effort, and ask decision-makers like city council or the school board for specific policy or law changes to make the issue better.

In UpRISE, youth engage in community organizing by understanding their local decision-making landscape and
joining with others to create solutions to the root causes
they’ve identified.

UpRISE youth have presented to their local city council about
the need for safe youth-specific spaces in their community, met with their school principal to talk about how student/teacher relationships can be improved, and spoke at press conferences with state and federal elected officials.

We are politically aware, civically engaged, and will challenge
and change the broken systems that fail to support the health and well-being of youth.