I have recently been reading a book by Hava Rachel Gordon, “We Have To Win: The Inequality and Politics of Youth Activism” which has been really interesting for me because even though I’ve read a lot about activism, protesting, and non-violent civil disobedience, I didn’t realize the importance, the impact, and the differences of youth activism within the larger scope of activism.
 In her book, Gordon talks about her experience working with several groups of youth activists, and also about how youth activism became a movement, specifically here in Oakland. One of the many things I found fascinating was that even though these student activists didn’t share similar backgrounds, they worked hard and cohesively as a collective. However, movements in the past, such as the 1960’s counterculture movement, and even activism today such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring have fallen apart, because partnerships dissolve as the average age and size of the movements grow.
 I know, I know: some people would see these as staunch claims. And you know what?
I would agree.
 Yet I ask you to hear me out. Youth movements tend to be more cohesive and thus successful, however, I would argue that it’s the number and location of active participants that play a crucial role in determining (to a good extent) the their success. A lot of youth activism is school-, school district- or small-government targeted, and this means that they have a smaller scale within which they have to be effective, in order for their movement to be successful. And even though youth activists obviously tend to be younger than the average activist, and because there are fewer youth activists because of this, leaders within the movement remain easily identifiable and thus their demands remain clear and identifiable as well. In comparison, larger activist movements that affect and are adopted by larger groups of people tend to be their own undoing: because the reach of the activism itself is so far, the deeper causes within the movements in different locations has a tendency to change, and the larger movement’s social fabric undoes itself.
 I’m doing my practice experience with a not-for-profit organization that acts within the Bay Area called 100 Strong, a leadership and mentorship program for high school girls, especially those from marginalized and historically-disadvantaged communities. We’ve just started our pilot year and are currently acting within Oakland, which has a rich and vibrant history of social movements of its’ own. Though we don’t deal with these student-activists specifically within our program, important skill sets for engaging at such levels see, and even be, the change that they want to see in their communities. Sustainable change anywhere has often come from those who experience these struggles, and understand the systems, relations and institutions at play, and thus also the changes that need to be made. In building leadership and mentoring skills, teamwork, organization, management and other such skills, there are investments and knowledge being integrated into a community, through the individuals who are a part of them.