The National Youth Justice Network celebrates established over a decade of transformative leadership development with our Youth Justice Leadership Institute (YJLI) lookbook! YJLI was established in 2011 to deepen and strengthen the leadership of Black, Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC) advocates working to create true youth justice. YJLI’s exists to clear a broad path for people of color to lead the youth justice movement toward abolition and the dismantling the oppressive systems harming our communities. Since 2011, 105 leaders representing 36 states have matriculated through YJLI and are occupying leadership positions across the country.
Why does this matter?
Our movement is not just about changing policies – it’s about uprooting systems of oppression that suppress the leadership and voices of communities of color. An essential element of winning transformative change is investing in transformative leaders who represent impacted communities. With YJLI, we invest in a long-term social justice leadership pipeline while also modeling the power shift needed to reach the transformation we seek