AF3IRM, Monsoon Women of Iowa, and KmB Conduct Summer School of Youth Activism in Iowa; Advance Young People’s Social Justice Movement

DES MOINES, IOWA – For 5 days in June, 20 youth participants from Des Moines fully engaged in the inaugural Summer School of Youth Activism, convened by Monsoon Women of Iowa and conducted by AF3IRM and Kabataang maka-Bayan Pro-People Youth (KmB). The students, from 8 to 19 years of age, and of Vietnamese, Karenni, Lao, Filipina, Somali, Indian, Mexican and African-American descent, came together to discuss their own issues with migration and oppressions under racism, patriarchy, ableism, heterosexism and capitalism. They then learned about our histories of struggle and engaged in organizing workshops. The curricula were facilitated by AF3IRM National Organizing Director and former youth organizer Ivy Quicho, Kabataang maka-Bayan Los Angeles Chairperson and high school teacher Mark Ramos, and AF3IRM National Chairperson Jollene Levid.

Highlights of the sessions included student documentation of their own personal histories, intensive organizing trainings, video conference calling with Don Luong and Garden Grove School Board Member Bao Nguyen – Vietnamese-American activist leaders from Little Saigon in California, and engaging in an entire day learning about patriarchy and how to combat it – as young girls and male allies. The students also learned how to create their own organization and strategized their first campaign: how to stop bullying, something that they all had faced in Des Moines. Youth participant and co-facilitator Asmara Shan, age 13, stated, “I learned that people don’t do things by themselves in our movements. They have entire organizations backing them up.”

The inaugural Summer School of Youth Activism has led to a new commitment by Monsoon Women of Iowa to make the school an annual event. As Monsoon Women Executive Director Mira Yusef stated, “We expect the youth to do something about all the discrimination they face, but have never given them the skills to do so. This school finally did that.” –###

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