Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Azariah, an 18-year-old artist and activist working with Chicago’s A Long Walk Home, collaborated with a dozen neighborhood teens to transform an abandoned liquor store into a fresh produce market. Austin Harvest, as it is called and where Azariah also works, now sources fruit, healthy food and flowers from local suppliers across the city and provides nutritious and healthful choices for her community.
Azariah and her peers are an example of what we can accomplish when we trust and abundantly invest in the leadership of girls. Research reveals young Black and Latinx girls are more likely than others to identify as leaders and yet, women and girls of color collectively receive less than 1% of all philanthropic investments.
Meanwhile, girls show us every day the transformative power of their leadership. Young people like Emma, Maria and Cielo served as youth consultants and facilitated a healing retreat for queer and trans youth of color in the South. They collaborated with Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement and created a safe space for young people to heal and step into their full potential through the lens of rest and play.
Young people are pushing our communities and leaders to expand our visions of justice and equity. This includes developing a gender analysis that includes girls and femmes as they articulate the dynamic nature of their identities. To fully elevate and amplify girls’ leadership, we must invest in their well-being. This means we must recognize how girls’ youth show up in leadership — this requires adults to both cede power and seed power.
To cede power is to release it. To seed power is to leverage our own resources to grow opportunities for leadership. This is the commitment of many adult community leaders,…
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