Sharing power with San Antonio's young people

October 2020 | Fall Newsletter

Sharing Power with San Antonio's Young People

We successfully launched our Youth in Power Program with over 50 young people. The participants represent over six school districts from across the San Antonio area. The young people will be participating in three tracks of the Youth in Power program: Policy Institute, Leadership Tracks (Digital Badging) program, and the Strategic Funding Alignment Committee.

We're thrilled to continue on this exciting journey with this group of young people so we can continue building power to drive policy change.

Track 1: Students to present policy memos through the Policy Institute

Thirty students successfully completed the Our Tomorrow Policy Institute. For one week, they learned how to elevate their collective voice and influence through policy making. By the end of the week, five student groups presented their learnings through policy memo drafts, which they will later share with policy makers in their school boards.

Track 2: Students to develop digital badge

Six students will develop a digital leadership badge through the FutureReadySA Digital Badging program. This is an incredible professional development opportunity and resume builder for young people who are interested in leadership development, advocacy, tech, and programming. This group will work on the leadership badge through the fall semester.

Track 3: Youth committee to identify city funding gaps

Seven students will serve on the Strategic Funding Alignment committee alongside community leaders from the business, government, education, and philanthropic communities. As committee members, students will help identify funding gaps in San Antonio and co-develop strategic recommendations to promote an equitable recovery of the city's child and youth serving systems.

Voices of Our Tomorrow blog

We are excited to announce the launch of the Voices of Our Tomorrow blog. This fall, we've asked our youth leaders to submit to us what's on their mind.

We'll hear their thoughts on wealth inequality, police brutality, voter suppression and many other topics.

Our first blog tackles the importance of youth voice and what adults can do to make sure they're including young people at their decision-making tables.

A new blog will be posted every Thursday.

New network structure launches for 2020-2021

After much consideration, Our Tomorrow's approach will be a little different than it has been in the past. We've taken the identity of our backbone as a data-informed, policy-focused organization to create data and policy work groups, while creating an arts and media group to be inclusive of our youth leaders' skills and interests.

We are excited to welcome our newest steering committee co-chairs, who will be working together to develop plans for the network.

Arts & Media

Youth leader co-chairs: Fatimah Rasul, AJ Tapia Wylie

Adult co-chairs: Lisa Marie Gomez, Nick Garcia, Patricia Stone

Policy

Youth leader co-chairs: Laura Reilly, Clarissa Tavera

Adult co-chairs: Julia Grizzard, Marisa Perez Diaz

Data

Adult co-chairs: TBD with Leroy Adams serving in the interim

Youth leader co-chair: Alyssa Martinez