Youth Organizers Moving their Generation

“Educate people so they know the situation and realize it’s a big problem…then they’ll keep them coming back to help us fight.”
— Erika, MRNJ Youth Leader

Make the Road New Jersey was founded in late 2014 to build the power of immigrant and working class communities in New Jersey. Their goal is to achieve dignity and justice through community organizing, legal and support services, transformative education and policy innovation. Over the past two plus years, they’ve grown to more than 675 dues paying members and reached over 4,200 high school students. Given the recent decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), their work with youth has become even more critical.

The majority of Make the Road New Jersey youth organizing is focused on students in Elizabeth Public Schools (EPS), which serves a student body that is overwhelmingly poor and from immigrant backgrounds. The school district is growing quickly — EPS is the fourth largest in the state with 7,000+ high schools students — accommodating 3,000 new students over the past two years.

In this shifting political terrain, young immigrants in New Jersey, the third most immigrant populous state, face an entirely new and unprecedented set of threats to their future and families. Earlier this year in Elizabeth, ICE targeted a single mother at her small business in front of her children. Since then, seven Make the Road New Jersey participants have been detained by ICE, including young people. In a recent meeting, local early childhood programs reported a drop off in enrollments potentially due to fears about ICE. Of course, these fears are exactly why we must not disengage. It is critical that young people have space to reclaim and rebuild the meaning of safety in their communities. Their lives depend on it.

“I love that we’re addressing the issue of immigration that is very present in politics, but also very present in my life.” — Erika, MRNJ Youth Leader

At the start of the Youth Power Project, when Youth Leaders were trying to decide where their expertise would be most helpful, they swapped stories from their own lived experiences and drew similarities across the group. As a result, they supported staff-led trainings for 350 school counselors on how to support undocumented youth when applying for college. In the last 6 months, they have also built the “College Ambassadors” program to ready students for college, and are already seeing incredible results with 12 students being accepted to college, and a total of $1.2 million awarded in college scholarships. As part of the College Ambassadors program, each student has also agreed to counsel a younger student and support them on their journey as well. In opposition to the increasing number of immigration raids on communities across New Jersey, MRNJ youth leaders ran a successful campaign to make the Elizabeth, NJ public schools a sanctuary school district to protect immigrant students and parents.

“I want to change the mindset of the people in my community and the way they think of immigrants.” -Edwin, MRNJ Youth Leader

Outside of school, youth leaders have planned, designed, managed logistics and have used Hustle for 13 rallies and educated elected officials about the importance of DACA and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented young people. They’ve led more than 10 Know Your Rights Trainings for other undocumented families to ensure they have accurate, up to date information. Statewide, they’ve held and used peer-to-peer texting for 3 convenings that turned out over 100 students for each.

As youth lead, they’re cultivating their organizing skills and learning how to leverage different tech-based tools in their work. We’re proud and humbled that Hustle is part of their toolset. Here’s a bit more from Rey about why he organizes and how he’s using Hustle in his work:

Youth organizers are constantly inspiring us by the way they leverage Hustle and other technologies in their work. Thank you to Rey, Erika, Edwin and all the young people building movements.

For more information on Make the Road New Jersey, follow them on Twitter and Facebook @maketheroadnj and visit www.maketheroadnj.org/donate to support their work.

Co-authored by Nedia Morsy, MRNJ Youth Organizer