Youth Venture Spotlight: Oakland Teens Planting Seeds of Change
Have you ever thought about what you could do to change the neighborhood or city you live in?
This past March, seven teams consisting of teens from Oakland, California, got seed funding of $1000 per team to start projects that would help address problems they found in their communities. The grants are from Youth Venture, an organization that supports young changemakers and leaders as they create and grow their own social ventures.
Each of the groups ideas are really impressive and unique, like one of the groups that creates positive hip hop music, two that are supporting the poor in other countries and another which will provide healthy food to the Oakland community. Congrats to all of the winning teams! Read about the groups and watch the videos below where each of the teen describe their projects.
The Winning Youth Venture Teams and Members
- Healthy Neighborhood Store Alliance, a service to make fresh produce more accessible in West Oakland: James, Ennis, Jamelah and Alshea.
- Grown Your Own Green, community gardening in West Oakland: Rachelle.
- Oakland Youth for Peace with Police, improving the relationship between Oakland youth and police: Tamara.
- O Zone Music Group Hip-hop with a purpose, youth empowering youth through music: Olondis.
- Youth Roots, Creating a positive-message t-shirt line, sold online and now also distributed through local school uniform programs: Diego, Mario, Hazel, Juan, and Isabel.
- Project Jatropha, supporting rural schools in Haiti and India: Adarsha, Apoorva, and Callie.
- Creating Hope for Future Leaders, sponsoring a school in Nicaragua: Miguel.
Videos from Oaklandlocal.com and Youth Venture
Youth Venture is a great organization that also gave Dreamer ENT’s founder her first community service grant as a teen. Want to get your own grant to spark change in your community? Read more about the organization below and watch another video of the teams from Oakland presenting for their opportunity to win the grants below:
Youth Venture is an international community of young people who are powerful now, changemakers now. Youth Venture inspires and invests in teams of young people to create and launch their own sustainable, community-benefiting ventures. Youth Venture then connects them into a global movement of young changemakers who are together redefining the youth years as a time of leadership and positive social change. This is the foundation of an Everyone a Changemaker world – the key factor for success in every part of society. To learn more how you can get a grant to help your community visit www.GenV.net.
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Hi, I'm Julene, editor and director of Dreamer ENT. The goal of this site is to inspire young people, and the young at heart, to pursue their passions boldly and brilliantly... 
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