Notes to my Younger Self: Future Fellows Project

Artists Within Reach is a collective of 19 parents, 11 organizations and 52 South Florida residents who work as a team to respond in real-time to issues that affect our youth.

The Notes to my Younger Self Future Fellowship initiative is a year-long grassroots service and leadership training project designed to support and empower an emerging network of young women (ages 18 -25) of color from underrepresented communities in South Florida. Fellows participate in leadership and skills development workshops relating to mobilizing youth voters and executing non-partisan voter registration activities.

The initiative is created by youth for youth who understand that their peers may require a different more creative approach to civic engagement. Participants of the Future Fellows initiative are tasked with designing voter registration activities that are interactive and branded to reflect and employ youth concepts, interests, design and programming that communicate the value of young electoral participation.

Young architects of this project crafted a campaign that would allow participants to 1) feel included without judgment 2) learn without being embarrassed and 3) interact with peers in a safe environment as key elements of the project. The project was created out the need to immediately respond to our young people who are just learning to use their voice. On a broader scale, young people are expressing the desire to learn how to clearly articulate their concerns, demonstrate that activism is more than a hashtag, and stand in solidarity with their peers to advocate for issues that directly affect them. Our goal is to activate narrative power of young communities to tell the stories that are most important to them and to help young people as they conceive and create a more just world with and for one another.

Financiado pelo capítulo Awesome Without Borders (August 2018)