Summer Social Justice Camp Reflections
The Education Justice Coalition’s first Summer Social Justice Camp ended last Thursday. Our wonderful youth facilitators: Mea Ree Jan, Eliza Willis, and Auishma Pradhan exemplified our mission of “by youth for youth” carefully considering how to meet the needs of the youth in attendance and create an accessible, creative, and fun experience. Participants share what they’d like to learn about and discuss. We spend each day on a different topic. The topics that were chosen were:
Day 1: Identity and Belonging
Day 2: LGBTQIA+ Rights and Feminism
Day 3: Gun Violence
Day 4: Antiracism
Day 5: Disability Rights and Lawmaking
Day 6: Youth Action
We also learned about youth organizing, played games, made art, wrote poetry, shared food, and practiced storytelling. We had incredible guest speakers like Jayna Ahsaf from Free Her, Sade Bolger from Planned Parenthood, Sefakor Komabu-Pomeyie from Vermont Center for Independent Living, Charlie Judge - City Councilor for Winooski, and Max Barrows from Green Mountain Self-Advocates. We value youth taking the time to learn and think about how to improve our world, so each youth who attended were compensated for their time.
Stay tuned as we plan on designing a toolkit for the Summer Social Justice Camp. The goal of the camp is to not only create an incredible learning experience for youth in Chittenden County, but to also provide a framework so youth across the state have access to a camp like this.
Thank you Outright Vermont for letting us use your incredible space while you were on your annual gaycation. Thank you American Flatbread, City Market, and Tiny Thai for donating food. Thank you to our adult helpers - Brita Fischer, Sarah Lowry, and Liz Goodwin who helped transport youth to and from camp, picked up food, and made sure things were in good shape during the camp. Thank you to the New England Youth Organizers Network and all of our donors for financially supporting this camp.
Read about the Summer Social Justice Camp and one of our incredible youth organizers in The Other Paper: “South Burlington High School student sparks social justice conversations” by Liberty Darr.
