Youth Power PDX

Date: Exact time TBD

Registration: TBD

Date may be postponed due to Covid-19. Stay tuned!

-Mission: YouthPowerPDX is a youth run collective which centers BIPOC and queer (LGBTQ+) stories and voices through the crossroads of story, music, visual art and activism. 

-Vision: Taking on systemic oppression from an intersectional point of view, YouthPowerPDX aims to give youth a place to connect, grow and organize through the potency of youth power.

The Youth Power PDX program will include two events in 2020. The first event, “Speak Up, Sing Out” is being planned as a youth movement, now taking place primarily on social media because of COVID-19. This event is set to culminate on June 6, 2020 or sometime late Spring - early Summer  and will feature youth art and activism. The second event will take place in the fall of 2020, hopefully in person and will focus more on youth organizing and activism.

We had originally envisioned the first event - Speak Up, Sing Out as a night of celebration featuring a youth resource fair and youth musicians, poets and speakers. We are now adapting our program to include a social media based art series featuring the art and poetry from our core youth organizers called “Core Four”.  We will then do dedicated outreach to youth organizations that we were hoping would attend our resource fair, encouraging youth in these organizations to create their own art and send it to the Core Four to be featured on our social media. As youth tag their friends and encourage them to do the same, we hope that this will spread and inspire other youth to “Speak Up and Sing Out” . In this way we hope to initiate and catalyze a social media based movement and platform for youth voices within the constraints of COVID-19 based physical distancing protocol. 

The culminating event in late Spring-early Summer will feature youth artists and activists picked by our Core Four team and will be streamed live. For this event, we’re also hoping that youth will be able to use interactive digital platforms to connect with each other more deeply during this digital event. Based on the attendance of last year’s initial launch of Youth Power PDX with the "We the Wild Youth" event, we are planning for 50-150 youth attendees, volunteers, performers, speakers and youth supporting non-profits.

The second event in Autumn is intended to address activism, featuring training on anti-racism, self-defense, and workshops on how to protest safely. This event will also feature youth speakers, forums and tabling organizations, giving it more of a feel of a youth summit. In light of the changing state and national recommendations on gatherings we are proceeding with our planning schedule, at the same time we are mindful of creating contingency plans to reschedule this Fall Youth Summit.