09 Oct Fellowship Friday!
This year, Community Coalition (CoCo) is celebrating 30 years of organizing African American and Latinx youth and residents to influence, change, and create public policy that can improve the quality of life in South LA. CoCo successfully pioneered one of the first large-scale action campaigns in the nation, which focused on land-use policies concerning social justice. Youth organizers also made college prep classes a civil right for all students attending the Los Angeles Unified School District and altered the public debate on foster care to support keeping children with relatives in kinship care. The organization has built a groundbreaking, community-driven approach to creating systemic social change.
A key component of change is leadership development. To that end, CoCo is currently hosting its second Youth Organizing Fellowship, which is comprised of a cohort of 14 fellows who are already contributing to the social justice movement. By investing in them as the next generation of leaders committed to transforming the social and economic conditions of black and brown communities, Community Coalition ensures that the movement is in good hands. The current Fellows are diverse trailblazers which include Alejandra Romero, Armando Peña, Davona Watson, Destiny Moore, Harold Lloyd, Ian Taylor, Jathan Melendez, Jeffrey Hines, Mariluz Tejeda-Leon, Marquel Reid, Nyereath Nhial, Ryan Bell, Saraia Driver, and Whisper Torres.
The Youth Organizing Fellowship will allow them to hone their skills further and engage with organizing experts with decades of experience. Additionally, fellows will learn youth organizing through field practice. They will apply power-building strategies that address the root causes of poverty, mass incarceration, and the school-to-prison pipeline. We congratulate them on being selected and wish them a great learning experience.
The Youth Organizing Fellowship launched on Monday, September 28th, and will conclude on Friday, November 13th. With over 30 years of experience in community organizing, CoCo’s fellowships support its goal of establishing an unprecedented training center in the heart of South Los Angeles.
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