It's Our Money
#itsourmoney Youth led direct democracy
Name of Your Organization:
Research Foundation of CUNY on Behalf of Medgar Evers College
GenZ for NYC Youth Group
Overview of the Project - Please provide a brief description of the project.
Summary
GenZ for NYC Youth Group is a community development group looking to create a safe and nurturing virtual environment for young people. This virtual experience will allow youth to express their thoughts, develop social networks, share their experiences and gain exposure to a changing world through positive young mentors, civic engagement, and diverse extracurricular activities. Our group has decided to create a website that will host several virtual activities, ideated by the group, to address the mental health challenges young people in the community are facing due to the effects of Covid-19 restrictions. The virtual space will include: a YouTube Channel, Tutoring Services, Information Workshops, Help Tutorials, Community Events Calendar, Age Appropriate Chats, and a number of other entertaining programs for youths age 10 to 24.
Our group has concluded that many of the mental health challenges young people in the community are facing are directly connected to the effects of the Covid-19 new norms. Specifically, the lack of outlets that allow young people to feel safe and motivated to engage in rewarding activities. This conclusion led us to our mission and vision for this proposal.
A YouTube Channel with weekly scheduled programming created by youths for a youth audience. For example weekly art classes, yoga, dance, exercise, Internet safety classes, games, guest shows, interactive zoom sessions, music reviews, and other topics.
Provide tutoring help, especially in STEM-related topics, using high school seniors and college students as mentors.
Financial literacy and career advancement seminars for youth interested in managing their money, starting their own small businesses, or searching for future job opportunities.
Community services information calendar to announce available food pantries, health updates, leisure, civic engagement opportunities, and other free events.
Monitored and age designed chat rooms with current event topics, such as the Covid-19 vaccine, jobs, gangs, drugs, voting, politics, gender issues, climate change, trauma, video games, sports, entertainment, movies, and many other topics. The possibilities are endless, but we will concentrate on those identified in the Youth Needs Assessment Report that are most pertinent to our targeted audience.
Information links to various entertainment and educational topics based on what is trending in and out of schools.
Help Tutorials for graduating students on all transitional levels and College Bound seminars for middle school and high school students.
Our vision is that youth in the targeted age group [10 to 24] will have various options at their disposal to spark their interests and promote serious inquiry to help fill the void the pandemic may have created in their lives. It will be a space that our organization will carefully monitor for safe content. A description and an age-appropriate warning will be given for all programs before they commence. All programs broadcasted or posted on the site will be pre-screened and approved by the GenZ for NYC leadership and program facilitators.
We have developed a Marketing, Educational, Technology, and Program/Scheduling Plan to execute our project. Preliminary information on these plans can be accessed by clicking on the links below.
Which of the following issues does your project address?
- Issue 1 - Addressing Mental Health
- Issue 2 - Preparation for College and/or Career
- Issue 3 - Youth Advocacy Promotion
GenZ for NYC Youth Group will address all three issues but focuses more on issue 1. “Addressing Mental Health” and Issue 2. “Preparation for College and/or Career.
Youth Engagement - Please explain how you will engage youth in the planning and implementation of the project.
The website will be created, designed, maintained, and operated by the members of GenZ for NYC Group and the program facilitators. Special youth guest speakers will conduct special events and programming. All social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok will promote our website and recruit followers. We will reach out to schools, colleges, and afterschool programs in the targeted neighborhoods to inform them of our project. The program will be youth-driven; we will be open to any credible and responsible idea brought forward by other youth groups or individuals that fall within the parameters of our mission.
Budget - Your total project budget must equal $20,000 to be placed on the ballot for a youth vote. Please provide a brief description of what the funds would be used for to successfully implement your project. You will also need to download, fill in, and attach a full budget using this template.
The Budget will be utilized to cover the expenses involved in accessing the media platforms that will be used for the proposed Virtual Space. In addition, the budget would be utilized to procure materials related to the implementation of programs, stipends for part-time workers prizes for participants and to cover miscellaneous expenses incurred by the workers. See attached budget.
Timeline- Please describe the timeline for the implementation and completion of the project. All work for this project must be completed by June 30, 2021, which is the end of the city’s fiscal year and the deadline for the funds to be spent.
Timeline
All work for this project must be completed by June 30, 2021, which is the end of the city’s fiscal year and the deadline for the funds to be spent.
The proposed Timeline for our project is as follow
December 29th to January 20th Complete Research of the media formats that will be used for the Website, the Channel, and other components of the Virtual Space.
January 21st Submit Application to CEC
January 23rd to February 3rd: Continue designing Website and Proposed programs
February 4th to 28th: Screen programs and post proposed schedule. Send out Marketing materials to target neighborhoods. Contact consultants and volunteers and set up meetings with them. Recruit other youth participants for the management of the Site.
March 1st to 30th: Finalize the Website and the programming schedule.Promote the Website [See marketing plan]
April 5th: Website Launch
April 5th to June 30th: Implementation of the Virtual Space [see proposed schedule and activities in the Education and Program Scheduling Plans]
June 30th: Project Closing
July: Project Final Deliverable Report
Project Activity Alignment - How does your project align with at least one of the following topics:
Leadership skills development: organizing & advocacy trainings
Our project was ideated, researched, and conceptualized by our youth members. The leadership opportunities given to these young people was one of the first norms established from the group’s inception. Through virtual space development, youth will acquire and use new skills, directly and indirectly, related to this type of communication media. In addition, we plan to continuously recruit other young people to be part of our youth leadership team and train them in the acquisition of the same skills.
Youth and student engagement
Our project is based on the needs expressed by the youth's voices through other programs in our organization and community partners. In our virtual space, our young audience will engage in both educational and extracurricular activities. The space will offer opportunities for interaction among young people, through vertical [different age] and horizontal [same age] peer mentoring.
Civic education and advocacy
One of the main pillars of our institution [ School of Professional and Community Development at Medgar Evers College] and Research Foundation CUNY is the advocacy of both young and older community members. These have included and will be part of our project’s programming, financial literacy, voting education, census drives, continuing education, access to political conversation, and other civic awareness information.
Community outreach involving residents that have been historically underrepresented in or underserved by city government and its processes
New York has many historically underserved and underrepresented communities across its five boroughs. Our project intends to reach out to as many young people through this virtual space. Due to our relationships and proximity with specific communities identified in the study, our primary marketing and outreach efforts will concentrate on the following neighborhoods:
Bedford Stuyvesant, Bushwick, East New York, Sunset Park, Coney Island, Brownsville, East Flatbush, Crown Heights, and Canarsie.
We believe that youth in these communities can benefit from this Virtual Space. The programs that we are proposing are resources that they might not have exposure to due to the lack of resources and accessibility. In these neighborhoods, exposure to civic engagement, professional and community development, information, and education resources can mean the difference between positive or negative mental health outcomes in their youth.
What is your organization's area of focus?
1. Children and youth-related
Our group focused on possible solutions to address the problems of mental health among children and teens in the community. GenZ for NYC put forward many suggestions to reach out to this targeted population [young people between the ages of 10 to 24]. Through informal surveying, we concluded that our target population is combating the feelings of alienation and mental exhaustion during the Covid-19 lockdown. Our project will directly aim to impact this problem by focusing on their interests and challenges.
2. Advocacy and organizing
The very nature of our project allows us to touch on a variety of topics and issues. Through our Virtual Space, our programmers will be able to express their opinions and those of other young people. The Chat Rooms, the special Education Links and our Channel will be hubs for youth advocacy. Our youth directors will gain real-life exposure to organization skills as the lead coordinators of the project.
3. Arts and culture
One of our scheduled programs will be dedicated to the Arts and culture topics. The Educational Link portion of the website will touch on the Art and Culture aspect of our new reality. For example, we will expose young people to virtual tours of museums and other venues that specialize in these topics.
4. Civic engagement
The group is composed of youth from the ages 14 to 21 of diverse ethnic, cultural, and social backgrounds. The members share two common interests, civic engagement, and community involvement. To address these common interests, the project includes many components that will educate young people on topics aimed at empowering them to fully participate in the development of their communities. These will include chats, information links, seminars, and event calendars.
5. Education and literacy
Most of our projects will deal, in some way or the other, with education. Whether it is curricular or extracurricular, the topics and programming will aim to instruct and entertain our target population [See Education Plan]
6. Employment and workforce development
At Medgar Evers College CUNY- School of Professional and Community Development (SPCD), the Research Foundation oversees several -Job Development and educational Programs for children, young adults, and adults. We will provide workforce development and skills for all those interested in these resources through partnership with some of these other programs.
Affirmations - Type "YES" below each statement to affirm that you are eligible to appear on the ballot for this process.
Many of our project’s activities align with the CEC’s mission “of enhancing civic participation, in order to enhance civic trust and strengthen democracy in New York City”. As stated in our education Plan, part of our Virtual Space programming will include special workshops and webinars with guest speakers addressing topics like the importance of the census, voting, community involvement, and entrepreneurship.
I confirm that my organization will be registered in the NYC Payee Information Portal and in PassPort, NYC’s online procurement system, in order to receive funding from the City of New York.
YES
I confirm that my organization is able to front the costs of implementing this project. Organizations will be paid based on deliverables.
YES
Completion of Deliverables: I understand all deliverables must be completed by June 30th, 2021.
YES
I understand a condition of funding includes submission of a final report upon project completion and participating in a debrief session with the CEC.
YES
This idea proceeds to voting because:
Thank you for your proposal! Based on our review, your proposal is eligible according to the guidelines and will be placed on the ballot for a vote by youth in February. We may reach out if further information is needed.
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I like the idea of helping young people engage in fun activities where they can learn and express themselves
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