Youth Venture

The YAN works to empower youth to take action in the community.

When I was 19, a friend and I who worked for the same education non-profit had this great idea. We saw a need in the community and we felt that someone should address it. And who better to address youth needs than youth themselves? In Austin , there are ton of youth service organizations (organizations that serve youth). You know, teen pregnancy, college prep, etc. But these were all adult organizations and yeah, they serve youth, but do they let youth lead? Do they empower youth to take action on the things they care about? When we pitched this idea to our employer they were shocked. Wow, these youth are really smart and innovative! Thats when we looked at each other and thought - We may be young but we're not dumb... Adults get really surprised and impressed when youth come out with a good idea (or say something smart for that matter), and this is the very reason that we wanted to create something like the Youth Action Network. Most adults don't know the awesome potential just brewing inside of all of us. It's because a lot of our potential hasn't been sparked yet. We thought that if we can somehow empower youth to take action - to make change - our community would be that much better.It was kind of a downer that the boss-lady said there was no money in the coffers, but if we wanted to do it then go out there and do it! So we did. Its that simple. We talked to some friends and told them to talk to their friends and before we knew it we had a good 15 people wanting this to become real. We brainstormed how we would like the Youth Action Network to look (a key thing to do because we came up with things that I would never have thought of myself), and even had a friend-of-a-friend design a logo for us! Then we went out and started telling people our idea. There are always community events happening so we had youth sign up at the events, and before we knew it we had 150 people in our network. Now its all about YAN Newsletter and YAN Socials and YAN this and YAN that! Its so awesome to see that we are growing and succeeding in our goals. And then - what do you know - we hear about Youth Venture and how we can actually get money to make us better. Its a win-win deal, hopefully not just for me but for Austin 's youth, also.