Collaborative History

Youth Allies began as a collaborative project between Earth Care, the Santa Fe Mountain Center's Native American Emergence Department, Copper Canyon Consulting, and ENLACE. The idea was to bring youth from Native, Anglo, and Latino backgrounds together to develop cross-cultural leadership skills through a series of weekend intensives on sustainability & decolonization. We believe it is important to acknowledge those who gave birth to the initial idea of Youth Allies: Ian Sanderson, Randy Charles, Sarah Ghiorse, and Christina & Taylor Selby who had the initial conversations and raised the money to hire staff & launch the Leadership Institute & support its early development. The Garfield Foundation and YES provided the funding that helped bring the idea into fruition.

The positive development of our young people and our community, the protection of the environment, and the promotion of cultural diversity require the participation of the entire community. Therefore, we feel that is extremely important to collaborate with other community organizations and agencies.

Major partnerships include:

THE CITY OF SANTA FE

Earth Care was invited by the City of Santa Fe’s Sustainability Commission to develop and coordinate their Youth Advisory Board. Earth Care staff who were appointed to the Commission as well as youth participants helped develop the Sustainable Santa Fe Plan. Earth Care works alongside the Commission with our Youth Advisory Board and educational programs to implement the City’s sustainable development goals.

THE SANTA FE MOUNTAIN CENTER

The Santa Fe Mountain Center is a partner in the Youth Allies Leadership Institute. Staff from The Native American Emergence Department co-developed the Institute in 2006 and continue to contribute training curriculum and program staff for trainings. The Santa Fe Mountain Center’s unique contributions include outdoor adventure programming such as ropes course and outdoor excursions, transportation, and Decolonization curriculum. We also work with the Mountain Center’s Gay Straight Alliance Program (NMGSA). NMGSA contributes to our anti-oppression training, helps to recruit LGBT youth to Institute, and invites Youth Allies to co-sponsor the annual All Color’s Youth Summit here in Santa Fe. The Santa Fe Mountain Center raises funds to support their contribution to the program independently. Geprge Gonzales is currently the Program Manager for the Native American Emergence Department who serves as lead SFMC trainer for Youth Allies. Other training staff include Warren Montoya, Beverly Billie, and Nicole Lovato.

YOUTH MEDIA PROJECT

Youth Media Project provides training in communication, media literacy, and media production to our Organizing Program participants in order to build their capacity to more effectively lead public education campaigns. The Youth Allies Organizers produce a Sustainability Segment every month that is aired on KSFR. The segment covers important local environmental and social issues from a youth perspective.

SANTA FE SCHOOLS & TEACHERS

The District and its teachers support our work by inviting us to conduct professional development trainings on sustainability education for the district, advertising our intensive teacher training program, and referring classes for our service-learning programming. We are considered one of the district’s service-learning providers. We also have working relationships with over 30 public school teachers in the district who participate in service-learning, help recruit students to the Youth Allies Institute, provide opportunities for our peer educators in their classrooms, and help to implement sustainability education in the schools. The Santa Fe Indian School works with us to recruit Native students to Youth Allies, recruit teachers for the Teacher Institute, and enable us to train students in sustainability education and community engagement through outreach workshops.

ENLACE /GEAR-UP COLLABORATIVE

ENLACE was a partner in the development of our Youth Allies Program. They continue to support the program by helping to recruit Hispano and Immigrant students for the Youth Allies Leadership Institute and inviting Youth Allies Organizers to conduct peer education workshops for their youth programs and state-wide conferences.

SERVICE LEARNING PROJECT HOSTS, COMMUNITY PROJECT PARTNERS, and GUEST TRAINERS

Southwest Network for Economic & Environmental Justice (SNEEJ)

The Santa Fe Watershed Association

New Energy Economy

The Living Wage Network

Somos Un Pueblo Unido

The Acequia Association

Wild Earth Guardians

TEWA Women United

Amigos Bravos

Topokal Women's Clinic

Hands Across Cultures

Riversource

The Community Farm

Wise Food Production

Santa Fe Community Gardens

The Sierra Club

Earth Works Institute

CCA

Chain Breaker Collective

Warehouse 21

Miguel Santistevan

Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski

Rose Simpson