The People’s Institute Youth Agenda (PIYA)
Since the 1980s, we’ve organized Undoing Racism® workshops and Freedom Schools for young people across the country. Our Freedom Schools honor the history of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Congress of Racial Equity, and the NAACP’s Freedom Schools, which sought to educate Black Mississippi youth about political rights, African-American history and race relations. The Freedom Schools, however, did not function simply as a remedial program, but aimed to help Black youth grow into future community leaders in anti-racist struggles.
The People’s Institute Youth Agenda continues this vision. We developed a process for youth, adapted from PISAB’s “Undoing Racism®”/Community Organizing model, where youth learn about anti-racist principles, history, culture, community organizing skills, and leadership development.
Around the globe, and throughout history, we see the importance and effectiveness of intergenerational movements for social transformation. We are committed to a movement for racial justice that brings young people together with their elders -- to experience mutual learning, and to develop an interdependence that includes all of us.
Using interactive learning/teaching methods, the People’s Youth Freedom School provides youth with:
- A sense that the Civil Rights Movement is not dead or a thing of the past
- Knowledge that young people have always played a significant role in social change
- Appreciation of community organizing and its importance
- Opportunities to apply reading, writing, and arithmetic skills
- Ways to move from good ideas to a plan of collective action
- A sense of their own power.
People’s Institute Youth Freedom School has been organized in different models depending on the community and the anti-racist organizing goals.
As part of the Freedom School, we recommend that adults in the community also participate in an Undoing Racism® workshop, to better support young people in their anti-racist organizing.
The People’s Youth Freedom School is blessed to receive direction from veteran organizers and educators with the People’s Institute and we are grateful to our forebears in the Civil Rights Movement for inspiring the idea of Freedom Schools. We look forward to keeping this process as a central part of our efforts to share anti-racist education and organizing with youth.