Youth in Action

VISIONS is cultivating the voices and leadership potential of young people through its Legacy Project. The Legacy Project incorporates the core principles of the VISIONS' trainings, while taking a particular focus on the challenges that youth face in dealing with oppression. Whether it is teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, gun and other violence, racial profiling, or police brutality, VISIONS founder Valerie Batts says "our youth are just as much at risk as they ever were." Valerie says the Legacy Project has found a way into the very painful conversations around the "isms" that cause oppression, including racism, sexism, heterosexism and classism.

VISIONS began the Legacy Project in Boston, and is broadening its reach by expanding the work to other youth-serving organizations around the country.  The Legacy Project curriculum grew out of a W. Kellogg Foundation funded Initiative, YES (Youth Engagement Strategies)/Teaching Youth to Challenge Racism and Oppression.  Trainings in this initiative were conducted between 2001 and 2003 with youth programs from Boston, MA, Decatur, IL, Cleveland, MS, Detroit, MI and Minneapolis, MN. The Legacy Project was launched in Boston in 2008.

Jamila Batts Capitman, daughter of VISIONS E.D. Valerie Batts, has been the driving force behind the Legacy Project, and acts as the young adult leader of the program. "The need to find a way for young people to be able to articulate their experiences as well as their hopes and fears," Jamila says, "has come out of my understanding of what it's like to be a young person living in an urban setting."  She says, "I believe wholeheartedly that with an understanding of the historical impact of racism and other "isms", particularly in the U.S., but also globally, youth can identify the causes of the problems in their communities, and then find ways to address them."

To experience the transformative dialogue young people are having about these issues click here for a You Tube link.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgzbldQ6Fw.

If you are interested in creating dialogue in your own community you can purchase a YES! Kit.  The Kit includes a manual and a DVD that will help organizations working with youth to create their own training experience.  VISIONS also hosts one day workshops throughout the United States where youth and adults have dialogue about critical issues using the Legacy tools.  For dates and locations see the Youth Engagement Workshops section of our website.