Youth Advocacy Training

In 2022 Equity Advocates launched a Youth Food Justice Organizers initiative to increase the capacity of youth food justice leaders to engage in youth-led advocacy and build collective power. With support from Levitt Foundation, we partnered with Teens For Food Justice (TFFJ) on a 8-month pilot to recruit a cohort of young New Yorkers, committed to deepening their policy knowledge and advocacy skills to advance food justice in communities across NYC. 

In April 2024, EA expanded our work to partner with East New York Farms, Green Guerillas, Riseboro, Youth Food Justice Network (YFJN) , Teens For Food Justice (TFFJ), and The Campaign Against Hunger (TCAH) to host a Train-the-Trainer series, a 2-day workshop aimed to equip youth food justice leaders with the tools and knowledge of policy and advocacy to teach back to their peers, colleagues and families.

We led a 2-day workshop series with 18 youth food justice leaders and hosted 3 policy workshops on:

  1. Government 101

  1. Bills Assessment & Crafting a Policy Ask

  2. How to Write & Provide a Public Testimony

This year, we had one of our 2023 Train the Trainer participants , Jabari Pothemont, one of Green Guerillas Youth Empowerment Pipeline interns, lead the Public Testimony workshop. The goal of our Train the Trainer advocacy training is to provide youth leaders with the advocacy knowledge, practical tools and materials as well as confidence to teach back to their fellow peers. With this  experience  youth leaders have an opportunity to meet like minded food justice advocates from across NYC, the confidence to pursue careers in the political field.

Youth Reflections

 

Thank you to the Levitt Foundation for their continuous support for EA’s youth organizing initiative.

If you are interested in having EA lead policy advocacy training sessions for your youth food justice and urban agriculture program please contact us.