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ABOUT US
Organizing Youth! (OY!)
was formed in January 2004 by a collective of South Asians who were
inspired by the success of Youth Solidarity Summer in New York, a week-long
educational program for young radical South Asians that has been held
in New York every summer for the past eight years.
OY!
is a volunteer-based organization
formed to provide radical political education and training to South
Asian youth, and to facilitate their self-empowerment to organize for
political, social, economic, and environmental justice. OY! is
dedicated to building a vibrant community of South Asian activists
who are committed to taking the struggle for global equality and
social change back to their communities and to the building of a mass
movement.
In particular, members
of the collective are committed to:
- Social justice
- based
on the universal guarantee of certain inalienable human rights which
include food, water, shelter, education, health care, freedom of
speech, and reproductive rights.
- Economic justice -
stemming from the people’s control over decision-making processes
and community resources, an equal distribution of wealth and
resources, an end to corporate globalization, and the complete
abolishment of the capitalist system.
- Anti-imperialism
-
resulting from the belief that all people have a right to control
their own destiny, organize their own societies, remain free from the
theft of their land and resources, and resist undue foreign
influence.
-
Environmental
justice - based on the fundamental value of all life; the right
of all to live, breathe, and eat healthy; and the urgent recognition
that problems such as water and resource scarcity, global warming,
and the destruction of the ozone layer will soon lead to ecological
collapse.
The
organization of OY! is centered around a core collective of 13
members (currently), who share responsibility for organizing all of
OY!'s political education activities, and the day-to-day
organizational and administrative workload. In
addition to this core collective, members of the organization include
alumni from OY!'s previous summer programs, as well as collective
members from previous years. There exists a larger OY! support group,
including community activists, local alumnae and current members
of the YSS (Youth Solidarity Summer, New York City). This support
group acts in an advisory capacity, and in addition to sharing their
expertise and experience with different aspects of political
education, assist in curriculum development and in the selection of
speakers and panelists for the OY! Summer Program.
OY! participants will be
invited to become members of the organization,
with a majority of these hopefully going on to become active
organizers. While the core group responsible for the annual Summer
Programs will likely continue to be 12-16 in number, we are committed
to
diversifying OY!s reach and expect new members to undertake new
projects and activities instead of being limited to joining the Summer
Program collective.
CURRENT PROJECTS
a)
Preparations for OY!'s second annual summer program for South Asian
youth are currently underway. See details at the the OY Summer 2005 page.
b)
In August of 2004, OY! hosted the first of an annual Summer Program in the San Francisco Bay
Area for all interested South Asian youth between the ages of 17-23.
The program consisted of workshops on frameworks of analysis for
anti-oppression work, panels on community resources and organizations
in allied movements, and training in organizing skills and coalition
building. For details visit the OY Summer
2004 page.
c) Over the next few years, OY! hopes to create a strong network of
South Asian activists and train the next generation of community
organizers. We plan to link up with other similar radical education
programs for South Asian youth in different parts of the country (such
as Youth
Solidarity Summer in New York, and RadDesi Summer in
Austin) in order to build a stronger left-oriented South Asian youth
movement.
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