Voices of Youth in Chicago Education

Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) is a youth-led organizing collaborative comprised of students from 7 community organizations and 12 Chicago Public High Schools working in concert with them, including:

• Albany Park Neighborhood Council | Roosevelt, Mather, and Von Steuben High Schools
• Brighton Park Neighborhood Council | Kelly High School
• Organization of the NorthEast | Senn High School and Uplift Community High School
• Kenwood Oakland Community Organization | Dyett Academy and Kenwood Academy High Schools
• Logan Square Neighborhood Association | North Grand and Kelvyn Park High Schools
• Target Area Development Corporation | Perspectives Tech High School
• Southwest Organizing Project | Gage Park High School

VOYCE builds on these community based organizations' histories of organizing both parents and students around school reform issues such as creating a policy change granting in-state tuition for undocumented students, securing the construction of new schools to relieve overcrowding, developing schools as community learning centers, and more.

The Albany Park Neighborhood Council (APNC) is a grassroots, community organization that unites Chicago area religious institutions, schools, universities, and ethnic associations around common values of social justice. Its organizing approach involves training and developing local leadership, identifying common issues within a broader social justice analysis, creating collective and strategic ways to address those issues, and systematically strengthening institutions.

The Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC) is a nonprofit, 501(c) (3), community-based organization serving a working class and predominantly Latino community on the southwest side of Chicago. BPNC was founded in 1997. The mission is to train and organize community leaders to create a safer community, improve the learning environment at public schools, preserve affordable housing, provide a voice for youth, protect immigrants' rights, promote gender equity, and address all forms of violence.

Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) has been an instrument of grassroots democracy in the North Kenwood and Oakland Communities for over 40 years. KOCO's organizing agenda is driven by its constituents, the low-income and working families of North Kenwood and Oakland. KOCO engages its members in organizing around the following issues: education, affordable housing and issues impacting youth.

Founded in 1962, Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) is a multi-issue, grassroots, membership organization that unites a diverse group of institutions and residents to address the challenges facing the Logan Square communities. LSNA focuses on education and school reform, health, affordable housing and economic development, immigration, and community spaces and the arts. LSNA bases its work on its Holistic Plan, which is revised each year through a community process. Today, LSNA represents 41 member institutions, including churches, ten individual schools, block clubs, multi-unit buildings and social service agencies.

Organization of the Northeast (ONE) is a broad-based, social justice organization that is working to increase civic participation and community leadership on the grassroots level. The ultimate goal is to empower less advantaged people to identify and act on critical issues affecting their daily lives. By uniting people of all ethnic backgrounds to take control of their communities, community members become vehicles for social, economic, and racial justice. ONE's mission is to build and sustain a mixed-economic, multi-ethnic community on the Northeast side of Chicago. ONE is currently organizing on issues related to education reform, criminal justice reform, living wage jobs, affordable housing and immigration reform.

The Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP)'s mission is to build a broad-based organization of churches, mosques, schools and other institutions in Southwest Chicago, which enables families to exercise common values, determine their own future and connect with each other to improve life in their neighborhoods.

Formed in 1995, TARGET Area Development Corporation, a faith-based organization, is a multi-issue grassroots leadership organization that works for social justice reform and systemic change through local leadership development, organizing, research, programs and collaboration. TARGET Area works to amplify and channel the informed voices of families and other stakeholders into the decision-making and policy development process at the local, city, state and federal level.