On April 18th, CFF partnered with East New York Farms (ENYF) to host Growing Leaders: Shifting Power to Young Leaders in the Food Justice Movement.
Youth programs across the country use food justice as a platform for building young people’s leadership skills, especially in communities of color. But too often, there are few opportunities and little support to transition promising youth into leadership roles when they age out of these programs. At this event, ENYF staff discussed their own leadership journeys from youth participant in a food justice program to staff and one of the preeminent youth food justice organizations in New York City. This event was the CFF Champions Award briefing, designed and created by our 2018 Award recipient, East New York Farms!
As part of the event, ENYF staff provided a handout with 5 key practices for growing leaders at your organization, with a special note for funders of these programs. Those keys include:
- Stay Connected
- Promote Longevity
- Do Research
- Make Space
- Provide Flexibility and Autonomy
The slides from ENYF’s presentation are visible in the video below, but you can also download their presentation here to follow along. The following time markers can be used to jump around to different sections of the video:
- Start – intro by Adam Liebowitz
- 2:50 – Panel introduces itself
- 4:10 – David Vigil, Project Director, provides history and background on ENYF
- 11:45 – Anita Chan, Agriculture Coordinator, and Iyeshima Harris, incoming Project Director, details ENYF’s many programs and services
- 24:45 – Panel discusses their own pathways to ENYF
- 1:13:55 – Q&A with audience