Expanding the Program to Youth Across the Bay Area

A screenshot from this year’s Summer Academy! 

This year we expanded our New Voices Are Rising Summer Academy program to include students from frontline communities across the Bay Area! Thanks to the help of our generous funders and donors, we were able to bring together 30 students from Oakland, Bayview-Hunters Point, Vallejo, Pittsburg, and Antioch.

With this year’s Summer Academy doubling in size, we brought on a few more staff positions to ensure a fully equipped team. The Academy had not one, but two Youth Co-Coordinators and six POD (Peer on Duty) Leaders. Get to know our Co-Coordinators who were both alums of the program and learn about our POD Leaders here.

This was our largest cohort yet, and we learned so much connecting with youth from different backgrounds. The expansion created countless opportunities for youth to draw connections and identify differences between their communities’ respective experiences. Learning about the various environmental injustices facing Bay Area residents helped educate and build solidarity among our Summer Academy youth. Coming out of this program, they will be even better equipped to speak up about the injustices facing their and each other’s communities.

We want to give a huge thank you to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and East Bay Community Foundation for their anchor grants supporting our program’s expansion across the Bay Area.