Summer Youth Research Institute

We will convene up to 40 Black and Brown youth for a Summer Youth Research Institute (SYRI) to expand youth leadership in Detroit PEER’s RPP. Youth activists from our RPP member organizations will be SYRI workshop co-facilitators. They will co-create and carry out curricula to teach principles of youth leadership and organizing to a new cohort of Detroit PEER youth advisors. The new cohort will engage in Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) to develop campaigns for educational justice based on critical issues of personal importance to them. They will also receive culturally relevant learning about the educational experiences of Black and Brown youth in Detroit, engage in youth empowerment exercises, learn the foundations of critical qualitative and quantitative research, and use storytelling for liberatory educational policy change. By the end of 2024, the youth will showcase their YPAR results and develop political actions to call for the educational opportunities they identify as necessary for Detroit youth thriving.