YOUTH EMPOWER

Enough! Youth Week of Action.

On March 14, 2018, nearly 1.6 million students staged school walkouts across the nation to protest Congress’ inaction on gun violence. That was just the beginning. 47 children and teens fall victim to gun violence every day. Young people — especially Black and Brown youth — are disproportionately impacted by gun violence.

On the the one-year anniversary of the #ENOUGH walkouts, Women’s March Youth Empower is organizing the Enough! Youth Week of Action.

Over the week of March 11-15, young activists will create artwork focused on the number 47, and host youth-led town halls on gun violence. These creative actions will take place throughout the week, with the town halls happening on March 14 in communities across the country.

Apply to become an official partner of Enough! Youth Week of Action here

Find or Host an Event

Youth Empower is the youth voice of the Women's March Network, aligned with the Women’s March Unity Principles.

We believe that the single most powerful act we can do is prepare young people with the skills and commitments to take action around causes that matter to them with courage, compassion and collaboration. We are guided by and organize from principles of revolutionary love and justice.

CONTACT US:
youth@womensmarch.com

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Current Work:

Youth Empower Chapters

From the toolkit, young organizers can start Youth Empower Chapters all over the country. To date, there are over 200 youth-led Youth Empower Chapters, focusing on a range of issues from reproductive justice, racial justice and environmental justice to gun violence prevention, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and more. Start a Youth Empower Chapter in your high school, college or community. Join a community of change-makers who are defining what they want this country to be, one chapter at a time.

Start A Chapter

Youth at a Women's March Youth Empower event

Empower Coalition

The Empower Coalition is a collection of youth groups and organizations that have come together to form a powerful coalition with the main purpose of empowering the youth movement nationwide Over 140 organizations and youth groups including MoveOn.org, Rock The Vote, Do Something, Eighteenx18, NEA and AFT, are members. The Voter Up campaign, the result of the work of the coalition, sought to engage young people in realizing their power at the polls. Apply for your youth group or organization to join the coalition!

Join The Coalition

Empower Toolkit

In partnership with Teen Vogue, Rock The Vote, Rise To Run, Peace First and Justice League NYC, the Empower Toolkit focuses on three areas:

Empowering youth in organizing in their communities
Empowering youth in voting
Empowering young people to run for office

Through Peace First, organizers can apply for mini-grants to support their work in building the chapters.

Download The Toolkit

Past Work:

Enough! National School Walkout

On March 14, 2018, Youth Empower organized and led a historic national school walkout that saw over 1.6 million students from all over the world walk out of schools to demand safety from gun violence. The walkout was described as one of the largest in US History. There were 95 organizational partners for the walkout. 149 kindergartens, 477 elementary schools, 1,434 middle schools, 3,132 high schools, and 242 colleges and universities took part in the walkout. Many of the walkouts occurred in areas that the media labels as “Trump Country” demonstrating that gun violence prevention is a non-partisan issue and that young people agree that they deserve safety in their schools and in their communities. This mobilization made history becoming the single day protest with the most individual locations in the history of this country.

Youth Ambassador Program

Coinciding with our historic 2017 Women’s March, Youth Empower received over 300 applications to be Youth Ambassadors. 31 young activists below the age of 18 were chosen, including Mari Copeny, 10 year old Little Miss Flint, who used her platform to speak out about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The Youth Ambassadors were able to use the international platform of Women’s March to bring light to issues that affect their communities and showcase solutions they are implementing.

Monthly Digital Workshops

After the 2017 march, Youth Empower hosted monthly workshops to teach our ambassadors how to be stronger activists in their communities and beyond. Guest hosts included Victoria Pannell, an advocate for sex trafficking victims and Dr. Hakim Williams, an expert on peace education and professor at Gettysburg College.