The Young Womens Project

The youth advisory council (yac) the dc youth advisory council (dc yac) engages 30 dc youth from all wards and several schools who engage and develop as leaders, workers, and healthy youth. Yac members develop their ability to successfully navigate transitions, build meaningful relationships, achieve personal goals, increase agency, and improve personal health outcomes. They also use their leadership and skills to increase health care quality and access for their peers, with health education, social media, advocacy, and community outreach events. The 2023-24 yac team includes 30 youth from 13 dc public high schools who contributed to program outcomes in yhep and mhc. Yac youth leaders educated 300 peers with weekly vpsa messages, reached 2,250 through classroom presentations, and distributed 7,000 condoms.

Youth health educator program (yhep) - young people come into our organization as peer educators through the yhep, a partnership with dc health and dcps, where they work in their schools and communities educating their peers, distributing condoms, and referring youth to clinics. Youth staff earn 15 an hour, work on teams and with a manager, apply their skills, develop professional behavior, and put together a portfolio of work products. In 2021, we hired and trained 182 youth staff from all wards and 24 public schools, who engaged more than 12,000 of their peers through health education, social media, and referrals that connect youth to essential mental and sexual health resources. In year one, peer educators engage in a rigorous curriculum that teaches sexual health and peer education as well as life skills;

Youth justice campaigns (yjc) - in year two, youth educators join the yjc, where they work as advocates and organizers to advance a bold advocacy agenda based on the real-life issues, and leverage their power through collective action to advocate for change and improve youth-serving systems. Ywp has 40 youth advocates meeting twice a week and working on four main campaigns: increasing youth and career opportunities, expanding school-based mental health services, improving public education through youth engagement in transition planning and budget decision-making, and expanding youth voting rights.