News
2009 SEYCO Grantees Announced
North Star Fund recently announced the 2009 grant recipients of the Summer Employment in Youth Community Organizing (SEYCO) program. Since 2002, North Star Fund has partnered with New York Foundation on the SEYCO program to provide funding for our grantees to hire paid high school and college interns as youth organizers. SEYCO deepens the understanding that young people have about social justice issues and the skills to be active in their community, while creating paid jobs and providing support for grassroots groups in New York City.
Eight North Star Fund grantees received grants of $2,500 to hire an intern to work with them this summer:
- Adhikaar
- Damayan Migrant Workers Association
- Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees
- Justice Committee
- Mass Transit Street Theatre and Video
- Movement for Justice in El Barrio
- New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE)
- VAMOS Unidos
By working alongside New York City's grassroots leaders, interns gain skills in outreach, base building, peer-education, and organizing public events and advocacy campaigns. Youth organizers will also be engaged in the larger SEYCO community through a one-day orientation retreat in July hosted by North Star Fund and New York Foundation.
Interns will complete the SEYCO program with a deeper understanding of the issues affecting marginalized communities in our city and the leadership skills to work with others to solve these problems. North Star Fund's Betty Kapetanakis Intern, Emerson Soto, will oversee the SEYCO program. Emerson, a student at CUNY Queens College, will build relationships with SEYCO interns and grantees during site visits.
Through the SEYCO program, North Star Fund continues to invest in new talent and support the development of local leaders in our grantee communities.
