YVote Summer Teach-Ins

Let’s face it, 2020 is an unprecedented year in many many ways. Fortunately, the 120 YVoters who participated in our #2020VisionForChange Summer rose to the challenge and dazzled us with their work throughout our six week summer sprint–online!

The summer culminated in our 2020 YVote TeachIns on Aug 18 and 20!

The TeachIns provided an opportunity for each of our YVote Action Groups to share their insights and expertise about the issues they are passionate about–and share why these issues should make young people vote and hold elected officials accountable.  Teens who have immersed themselves in Climate Justice, Criminal Justice, Gender Justice, Immigration Justice, Inequality, and Racial Justice will share their learning with fellow YVoters and invited guests. 

Each Action Group had the opportunity to make a 5-8 minute presentation and then field questions and feedback for 3-4 minutes.

Within each Action Group’s presentation, YVoters included

  1. Their Introduction: WHO they are and WHY their issue is important
  2. Their Pitch: how they will communicate about why young people should vote if they care about this issue
  3. Their Issue Scorecard, sharing the categories they think are most important to consider about a candidate, what their Score Card will look like, and where they’ll draw their information from
  4. Their Social Media Campaign, inclusive of key strategies they will employ to go viral–or at least get attention
  5. Their Call to Action, indicating what specifically they want people to do (for ex, cast an informed vote for candidates who will put their issue at the center of their agenda, convince at least 10 peers to vote, get people to do relational phone banking or text banking to people who care about their issue)

Each Action Group NAILED it, dazzling us with their persuasive presentations as to why they will be voting through the lenses of their respective issues–and why their peers should too if they care about criminal justice, environmental justice, gender justice, immigration justice, inequality, or racial justice.

Check out our Tuesday cohort

And our Thursday cohort

We learned a lot together this summer and developed a great foundation for us to roll out to communities all around New York City and across the country this fall. If you know youth or youth groups who would be interested in peer-led workshops on youth voter and/or civic engagement, our teens are ready to roll out their wisdom. Thank you, YVoters–we look forward to continuing to strengthen civil society together!

Special Thanks To Our #2020VisionForChange Summer Facilitators, without whom none of this would be possible!