Youth Community Action Programs

We propose the adoption and implementation of the “Youth Community Action Program” as a model for both developing and empowering our young sisters and brothers in the hoods, projects, barrios, rural towns, suburbs and trailer parks where our communities are situated. The Youth Community Action Program (YCAP) is both an educational/training program and a co-operative economic nonprofit initiative which targets underclass youth and neighborhoods employing volunteers from the youth’s own community and family to work in concert with YCAP activists in a two-phase development initiative.

Phase I involves a five-times-a-week, two-and-a-half hour (after school) educational and training initiative that focuses on history (from the true perspective – think Zinn, Diop); cultural awareness to retard racial conflicts and strife between oppressed nationalities and citizens stemming from stereotypes and misconceptions of Asian, New Afrikan, Mexican/Latino, Euro-American, Middle Eastern and other cultures; computer and technological literacy; the arts (visual, music, dance, etc.) and science and engineering. Three out of every five days a week the final hour will be devoted to martial arts, self-defense training and strategic thought (to promote self-discipline and critical thinking). Participants must comply with participation in Phase I to be eligible for Phase II inclusion.

Phase II involves establishing a collectively owned community-based venture which each youth participant will own an equal stake in and be trained in the area of the venture which best suits them. All will receive equal revenue portions/pay as collective work and responsibility should translate into egalitarian distribution of wealth.

A YCAP EXAMPLE

Perhaps one of the more enjoyable commonalities shared by many cultural groups is a fondness for the custom-car cultures. Building on the inter-cultural commonality, this pilot venture can be a custom car garage (think “pimp my ride”) where we can seek in-kind donations of equipment and old cars (all tax-deductible), cash donations and fundraiser revenues to fund the rest. Volunteers from this industry will train such youngsters in exchange for marketing publicity for their own ventures while we also seek industry-related sponsors. The cars will be retrofitted, rebuilt and “pimped out” into custom low riders, donks and euro-tuners and then put on the lot for sale and web-site auction. The proceeds from each sale or client “fix-up” will be split equally among the youth (50% of the profit), 20% will go to expand the non-profit initiative, 20% will go to a college fund for them all, and 10% will flow back into expanding the venture. In this manner we provide the youth with an economic incentive to be indoctrinated into collective practices and progressive activism, bring the community closer to one another, and introduce a new source of revenue into the underclass community where that chapter of YCAP is based.

The positive social impact on our communities and for our people who live in these communities should be significant. The potential benefit to our interests collectively is equally as vital as the abolition of domestic torture units and mass incarceration as a whole and, in fact, may serve as a new front in that struggle.

Terrance E. White  a New Afrikan revolutionary nationalist and part of a collective think tank whose mission is to create, develop, review and implement programs, initiatives and concepts with and for individuals, groups, and community activists across the U.S. to realize there’s a world to be won through social transformation. He can be contacted at the address below to learn more about our work.

Terrance E. White #AG-8738

CSP Cor SHU 4B-1L-63

P.O. Box 3481

Corcoran, CA 93212