YOUTH AS RESOURCES INC
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Mission Statement
Youth As Resources (YAR) Mission: We operate our own youth-led nonprofit organization, dedicated to grant-making, leadership development, institutional change, and community organizing. We empower ourselves and our peers to analyze the root causes of our most pressing issues and address them on our own terms, through training, exposure opportunities, support, and funding. Vision: We envision a peaceful and safe Baltimore, where every young person has access to equitable education, equipping us for careers and enabling us to sustain our own families. We envision a Baltimore where youth are not burdened by unstable housing, hunger, and lack of the fundamental necessities that are rightfully ours. We imagine a Baltimore where we are not incarcerated because we are black, subjected to stereotypes, or unfairly profiled. We envision a Baltimore whose actions and policies demonstrate a profound commitment to loving and safeguarding our children, youth and elders. Values: Central to our values is the authentic representation of youth voices, perspectives, and experiences, fostering leadership, and inclusivity for youth of all abilities. We prioritize caring for and supporting one another, community control, and demanding genuine decision-making power.
About This Cause
"YAR has not only become my family, but I have also learned how to take my experiences and transform them into opportunities for myself and my community," said Niara Mollett, Chair, Youth As Resources Board of Directors. Youth As Resources (YAR) is a youth-led non-profit organization dedicated to grant-making, leadership development, institutional change, and community organizing. We empower ourselves and our peers to analyze and address the root causes of our most pressing issues through training, organizing, strategy development, collaboration, support, and funding. We are governed by a high-functioning Board of Directors with a working committee structure. Our Board of Directors is composed of youth (ages 14-24). We are responsible for all aspects of organizational governance and management, including managing two rigorous grant cycles per year, budgeting and fund development, setting programmatic priorities, and evaluating outcomes. YAR’s Board of Directors ratifies an issue agenda each fiscal year. The issue agenda includes issues that we have experienced and know our peers also experience. We choose issues that we care about deeply and organize our peers to create and implement strategies that address their root causes. The FY 2025 (July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025) issue agenda includes school police accountability, school climate, youth homelessness, and mental health/disability awareness. Evidence of Our Track Record in Grant-Making, Leadership Development, Community Organizing, and Institutional Change: • Annually, an average of 175 youth carry out community organizing strategies supported by YAR funds. We have distributed over a million dollars to youth-led community-building projects and have provided seed funding to Baltimore organizations that have gone on to make a huge difference, including the YES Drop-In Center (providing resources and housing navigation for youth experiencing homelessness), the African Diaspora Alliance (providing political education and study abroad opportunities for Baltimore youth), and Truth-to-Power (providing wellness, healing, creative and cultural arts programming, including a recording studio). • We have received extensive training in mental health, disability awareness, and youth homelessness. Leveraging this expertise, we have developed a youth-friendly curriculum on these topics. Using this curriculum, we deliver training opportunities and educate our peers. To date, we have facilitated hundreds of workshops in the community. • We facilitate Climate Clubs in Baltimore high and middle schools. Climate Clubs are weekly school-based clubs organized by YAR youth leaders designed to engage students in identifying and analyzing challenges to school climate and creating strategies to improve school climate and student outcomes. Strategies include launching a low-cost driving school, student-led conflict resolution and mental health programs, and fundraising for increased field trips as an incentive for attendance and behavior. • We have organized to change the school police policies and general orders, including requiring the Baltimore City Public School District to administer the annual school police report card (a rating tool to gauge relationships between students and school police), requiring that school police receive five hours of youth-led training annually, strengthening policies around the use of force, and creating and monitoring diversion policies and practices. In addition, we have created a youth-friendly police (community and school) complaint form and worked with the Association of Student Congresses Baltimore City to pass legislation to increase the power of the student member on the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners. • We have created a comprehensive report and organizing plan to address the problem of minors who are unaccompanied and experiencing homelessness. We are advocating for the re-opening of Loving Arms, the only shelter in Baltimore City for minors. • We participate in coalitions and collaborations that align with our work, including the Youth Housing Action Committee, Baltimore City School Climate Collaborative, Ground Root (a coalition dedicated to advancing participatory grant-making), and the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. • In 2019, we launched the School Police Accountability Roundtable (SPAR). SPAR is a youth-led roundtable facilitated by Youth As Resources, composed of youth organizers supported by adult activists, mental health advocates, and educational advocacy organizations. Our shared objective is to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline by decreasing the involvement of police in schools. We aim to create and monitor school police policies designed to minimize harm and ensure school police are accountable for fostering positive relationships with the students and families they serve. SPAR is essential because it is a space where we create our own strategies and make decisions with adults providing resources and information. We live experiences that adults cannot truly understand, and at the same time, we need information and access that adults can often provide. • Year-round knowledge-based employment is provided for up to ten youth Board members outside of our Board of Directors responsibilities. This group, called Task Force, is responsible for base-building and providing organizing and leadership around the Board’s issue agenda. Through the Board’s and Task Force’s efforts, over 200 of our peers are trained each year as leaders, project planners, community organizers, and change agents. • Data compiled reflects successful outcomes for youth involved in YAR. Of the 201 youth who are currently or have formerly served on the YAR board since 2000, 79 (39%) have earned a bachelor’s degree. Of those 79, 29 have earned a master’s or other advanced professional degree. Fifty-two percent of YAR Board members (ages 25 plus) have earned a four-year bachelor’s degree, compared to 26% for Baltimore City (2024 KIDS COUNT data book). An additional 50 (25%) have some college credits and/or vocational certification. All but two YAR youth who have left high school have earned high school credentials (99%) compared to Baltimore’s graduation rate of 68.7% (Maryland Public Schools.org). Since 2008, 85-92% of YAR Board members' families of origin met or exceeded the federal guidelines for living in poverty. Currently, 61% of YAR Board members past high school no longer meet poverty guidelines. And the numbers continue to increase – eighty-nine percent of Board members who are five years or more past high school now lead households that no longer meet poverty guidelines. “YAR is a group of very focused young adults who are writing and creating bills and policies, making change, understanding their mission, and taking responsibility for raising funds for it, while also meeting other youth where they are and moving them forward. They demand that adults be consistent, transparent, and accountable”, said Darren Franklin, Field Organizer, Strong Schools Maryland, and SPAR adult ally. Our slogan is Nothing without us is about us. Support youth created strategies to address issues and include us as authentic partners in decision making around policies and the allocation of resources.