The 10th Annual Youth Over Violence Leadership Institute: Adapting Our Radical Work for Our New World
The Youth Over Violence Institute has been a staple in Peace Over Violence’s work with young people – working alongside them to learn about systems of oppression and new ways to transform our world, all while cultivating and sharpening their leadership skills.
Now in its 10th year, the Youth Over Violence Leadership Institute faced the remarkable challenge of translating an in-person program into a virtual one due to COVID-19. Leading up to its virtual adaptation of the curriculum and overall Institute, the Youth Over Violence Prevention team developed a new virtual series entitled Prevention @ Home, where every week staff provided educational conversations from our In Touch With Teens curriculum for our Violence Prevention Specialists and curious community members on Instagram live. This virtual series was used as a foundational guide for the entire Prevention team to adapt the curriculum for youth.
Hannah Denyer, who served as coordinator for the Institute, worked with new POV staff members Joslyn Beard, Luis Serrano, and Karen Avila, to shape and adapt the program. Overall, it took six weeks for staff to connect with local community partners, modify the curriculum, confirm guest workshop facilitators, develop virtual activities and appropriate assignments, and create a clear lane of communication for the youth participants.
As progress was made on the curriculum, there were several concerns that the team had to think through. The first being that youth engagement and applicants might be low since the program was completely virtual. As a way to encourage applications, the Prevention team partnered with POV’s Development and Communications department to think through new outreach strategies and engaging, relevant workshops to include in the curriculum.
This cross-department collaboration helped to produce emails and calls to local youth-focused organizations and visual assets to spread the word on our social media accounts. The collaboration helped garner over 85 registrants and brought in new partnerships, like independent publisher Este Archives, and relevant workshops like zine creation and re-imagining public safety.
The Prevention team has been working to create a world with more empathetic and critical thinking adults, by focusing their work with young people. The compassion many youth have for each other and the hope they have for social change are unwavering and the Prevention team is able to reinforce that compassion and hope through education and empowerment.
The Institute just wrapped up; the final sessions were emotional. Some youth stated that the program was the highlight of their summer and they looked forward to waking up and learning with the Prevention team.
To learn more about the heart, creativity, and hope for our collective future that happened during the Institute, stay tuned for the next installment of our 10th Anniversary Series.
This is a special three-part Voices from Movement Blog Series to celebrate ten years of supporting youth leadership.