Youth Voter Collective-Voter Registration Project of Chelsea Fund for Education

Description

Young people have so much to gain. With the continued erosion of workers' rights to form and join unions, young workers remain the least likely to be in a union. Young people often get stuck in temporary, dead-end employment that requires them to take on multiple jobs in order to support their families and/or their education--leaving little time for civic participation. Our particular challenge in the United States is that, although our country has a strong tradition of fighting for the right to vote and participate in all levels of the decision-making process, our generation has been subtly discouraged into believing that our votes do not matter. We feel that we are living in an era where we can take a huge step in overcoming this myth. We are entirely run and governed by young women and men between the ages of 18 and 30. As reflective of the communities in which we organize, our members are of diverse ethnicities, the majority African-American or Latino. It is our intention to register and mobilize youth from all sections of the country, particularly working class neighborhoods and schools--focusing particularly on youth historically underrepresented in the voting process. Ensuring representation of women, people of color and queer youth in all levels of leadership, we hope to be able to reach out to the broadest possible sections of youth.