Our mission is to empower and amplify the voices of teens and pre-teens by bridging them with diverse individuals to engage in interactive discussions centered around social justice.
50% of our 7th and 8th graders in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District are being recruited by gangs.
A majority of our students are low-income.
75% of our students are in a single parent household.
One of our neighborhood school areas suffers from an epidemic of gun violence and is home to the largest population of sex offenders in Cleveland.
One neighborhood school area has a large number of HIV positive adults and many of our youth as early as 7th grade are sexually active.
Many of our youth are afraid of leaving their home sometimes, and do not feel comfortable calling the police for safety reasons.
Imagine if you or your child was expected to go to school every day in these conditions.
Wouldn't you want to see change?
EYEJ is focused on building self-valued leaders.
Education is the answer to many of our issues today.
We are a bridge to social justice.
We believe that education comes in many forms. We also believe that we need to teach these kids to be strong and secure internal and externally. Cleveland youth have a lot of insight about the challenges they face. They want to express themselves and have others acknowledge their opinions and viewpoints. We also believe in bridging worlds together and do that by bringing speakers of all backgrounds, age, ethnicity, and job types to discuss various topics that has to do with values and self-confidence with an overarching focus of social justice. We believe in discussion, not lecturing or one-way communication, but true conversation. We believe in our youth as they are our future and our community. We are not about race — we are about human-to-human connection. We believe that our youth will help build the solution for social justice.
EYEJ's Stance on Youth Social Justice: EYEJ believes social justice means equality and opportunity for all. We believe a commitment to social justice requires us to value our collective diversity and commit to challenging injustice while simultaneously advocating on behalf of those who have the least.
We believe that our youth are our future and will help bring solutions to social justice. Our job is to inspire, empower and care for our youth.
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