We meet bi-monthly to share stories, organize and support social justice-based campaigns, & events, schedule school exchanges and plan the annual CYIC Social Justice Student Expo.
Organized in partnership with the Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education (CEJE), the CYIC Social Justice Student Expo brings together students, teachers, community members, and university faculty from diverse backgrounds and institutions to convene an event & educational space that that allows participants to teach and learn from one other on social justice issues. Media from past Expos can be found here.
CYIC hopes to develop meaningful curricular development, support local level teachers & students and include organized student presentations and action opportunities in classroom curricula. The Annual Social Justice Student Exposition offers opportunities for student-centered social justice learning, collaboration, and action.
Our Mission
Chicago Youth Initiating Change is a student-led organization that will ensure every school is designed to provide every student with a relevant and challenging education that prepares us to reach our greatest potential and face the real world. We, the students, with help from our teachers, families and friends, will identify systemic inequalities, injustices, and inefficiencies in our schools and communities and push to resolve them through constructive means. Ultimately, we seek the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve the things we want and need to combat the forces that jeopardize our futures and our communities. We will carry out our mission by launching and participating in student mobilizations, events, projects, curriculum, and campaigns that allow us to grow productively by changing what harms our future within our city and throughout the world. We are CYIC!
Our Goals
- CYIC will produce a comprehensive student, teacher, and community plan to improve ourselves, our schools, and our communities – and take action to implement it.
- CYIC will organize and participate in events and actions that unite students, teachers and supporters and culminate in the annual Social Justice Student Expo.
- CYIC will critique our current learning and fight for student-inspired curriculum that challenges and motivates us to think critically, be literate, and solve real-world problems.
- CYIC will coordinate an independent democratic student leadership structure inclusive of all schools city-wide to work diligently towards our mission and goals.
- CYIC will break down historical segregation to foster cross-school and cross-cultural relationships that create powerful student movements for social justice.
