Letting Young People Lead

Safe In My Brother's Arms (S.I.M.B.A.) & All Sisters Evolving Together (A.S.E.T.) provide community, enrichment, and academic support for students living in homeless shelters across New York City.  In 2019, Wonder Works partnered with their incredible founder and leader to help build the program’s next chapter.  Since then, we have launched their leadership development program, Youth Organized to Lead Others (Y.O.L.O.) –  a 10 week leadership and facilitation training program that equipped 17 youth with the skills and knowledge to run workshops on police brutality and know your rights for high school students across Brooklyn.  They provided a combined 30 hours or peer-led critical conversations on how to engage safely with the police. 

In response to COVID-19, we led the transition of the program from daily in person interactions to a fully virtual program. Serving 80+ students, over 8 weeks, in remote enrichment learning in everything from beat making to college readiness, paying every student in the process, we took the transition to virtual in stride and ensured that these students, who frequently get left behind and over looked got more of what they needed to whether the change.  We even got to hold space for a group of teenage young men weekly to talk about growing up as Black men in the world today.   

Take a look at our virtual Black Lives Matter Youth Action Town Hall:

​

​