Young Antiracist Leadership Project (YALP)

Activity Report

GlobalGiving

July 28th, 2022 

Project: Young Antiracist Leadership Project (YALP)

• Money raised

During the accelerator, we achieved both of our goals: we raised $5,000.00 USD and had more than 40 donors. We were also very lucky to have several recurring donors which are still contributing to our cause. Thanks to the many contributions we have had, we raised our goal three times since we joined GlobalGiving. Our initial goal of $6,000 USD was raised to $11,000 USD thanks to the immense support we had. We received many donations with messages expressing support to our cause. Many of our donors continue to give money as of today because they too want to see a second generation of YALP students. Our mission has always been to support young antiracist leaders and their projects, so the fact that we, as of today, have raised beyond our initial goal and are standing at a little over $8,000.00 USD, this money will allow us to support more underprivileged students and increase the diversity and expertise of our staff.

• Achievements

Since we obtained the funds we have made significant advances in our project. In this second edition of YALP we have secured sponsorship from Nike, The Canada Embassy and The Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, that will allow us to bring high value content to the students. We have already set up the eligibility criteria for the second generation of antiracist leaders. These requirements can be summarized as follows: The applicants must be individuals between 18 and 29 years old, they should speak Spanish fluently, they must have full-time availability to attend to each sessión, reside in Mexico but do not need to be nationals, and to have full disponibility to as. Additionally, they must have a project proposal which aims to help combat racism. The call for applications will be launched on July 1st 2022. In the last two weeks of June and the whole month of July we have been promoting our project on social media and we will also have a Q&A prior to the call for applications so we can bring applicants and the staff of RacismoMX closer together. We also have made public discussions on social media with participants of the first generation, talking about their experiences and inviting the audience  to apply to the project.

We have also set up our education programme for the two weeks which include the following topics: Race, racialization and mestizaje, white privilege, intersectionality, quantitative data to combat racism, Indigenous Languages and Indigenous cosmovisions, Extractivism, AfroMexican Movements, Anti-Racism, Politics, Freedom of Expression, Social and Mass media, Digital Activism, Self-care, Trauma and self-esteem, Racism in Latinamerica and Human Rights Protection. We are currently in the process of selecting and inviting our teaching staff. This process has not been completed yet because we want to ensure our staff is a manifestation to our commitment to diversity and teaching excellence 

• Future plans

As to the activities that still need to be fulfilled, apart from the organization of the actual course, we need to finalize our budget so the money raised via GlobalGiving is spent wisely. We also need to book our keynote speakers and complete the selection process of the students that will participate. Finally, we will send the material to the students and we will assign tutors from the RacismoMX team so they can guide and support the students through their time in YALP. Our staff is working constantly and hard to begin teaching and learning about racism in Mexico.

The next weeks we are planning to book the flights for the students that were selected, also we are organizing cultural activities for the students outside the office.