Partner with us in generating financial sustainability to cultivate the next generation of youth to unveil their race conscious leadership from within themselves and in our communities.
"I love YAASPA and the opportunities it brings to the students. We meet face to face and get to talk to people in different career fields and are able to build a network for our future as well. For me personally, it has widened my perspective and gave me consideration to a lot of careers I might have not considered or even knew about."
"YAASPA is a great organization that helps youth navigate through life and be aware of their communities in a way that wasn't always provided. YAASPA engages youth in social/political issues by helping them identify with certain issues and gives them avenues to get involved with those issues."
"YAASPA is such an amazing organization! It has opened me to many opportunities that helped give me an idea of who I want to be as a professional and I want to get involved with social justice in my community. The organization offers so much for the youth in the surrounding community to get involved in important issues that effect them. The Social Sciences and Policy Institute is one of these programs, it's amazing to see how the students are interested in learning more about social justice and how policy is incorporated. They are actively intrigued in changing the faults in the system starting off with their schools and YAASPA provides them with the resources to do so."
"I spoke at two summer policy institute workshops that YAASPA hosted. The students were passionate, attentive, and engaged in the activities to think of ways to increase voter participation across the country, especially among young people. Janiece, the founder and director of YAASPA, is very organized and has an amazingly positive disposition. The opportunities that she is providing for these young people are impactful and worthwhile!"
YAASPA endeavors to build the self-efficacy of youth who desire to make change in our communities, pursue social science degrees, and social justice careers.
Mission: To encourage and support disengaged and underserved youth to participate in their communities socially and politically, in order to make changes within the community. To create political and social awareness regarding issues that directly and/or adversely affects our communities, it is necessary to be educated. Through activism and education, we can redefine the standards that have been placed upon us.
Vision: to cultivate youth to be civically engaged in community and career!
YAASPA was established in 2010 based upon the academic, career, and civic experiences of the Co-founders Ernest and Janiece Mackey (current Executive Director). As a Colorado native and Black social scientist, Janiece Mackey has come to learn about the challenges youth face in navigating their academic, career, and civic development in the social sciences and public service careers amidst the Colorado Paradox. The Colorado Paradox is the phenomena that only 25% of 9th graders will earn a college degree and many are in need of remediation. In light of this, there have been career pathways created in order to build youth's self-efficacy in business, fine arts, health sciences, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Many of the decisions to create these career pathways have been from a top- down approach and simply based upon the labor market. Consequently, there have been few endeavors to cultivate the self-efficacy for youth who desire to pursue a social justice career and/or pursue degrees and careers in the social sciences. This is a gap that YAASPA mitigates with our programs and issue work.
Organization name
YAASPA
other names
YAASPA, Young African Americans for Social and Political Activism
2010
Tax id (EIN)
27-1970080
Category
Education, Community Improvement & Capacity Building, Employment, Social Science, Youth Development
Organization Size
Large Organization
Address
PO Box 202092Mailing
PO Box 202092Denver County, CO, US