Our Leadership
Peer Leaders Zaire (’26) & Jamal (’27) facilitating a workshop from the back porch of our Youth Leadership Hub during Sigue Pa’lante 2024, our annual community share back.
What do we mean when we say we are youth-led?
We strive to center the leadership of young people, particularly youth of color, queer and trans youth, and youth with disabilities, because they are most impacted by the school to prison pipeline, and therefore know best what they need and what solutions will be most impactful. We know that young people are brilliant, capable, and visionary. We ensure youth of color lead decision-making at every level of the organization.
Members
All youth ages 13-19 who can get to our space in Holyoke are eligible to become Members and access all of the resources available in our Drop-in Center. Members can then jump through a couple hoops and become a VIP Member… now you can get earn a stipend for attending educational programming.
Peer Leaders
Pa’lante’s main leadership body is a group of 35-40 student leaders representing a diverse cross section of Holyoke youth ages 14-19. Peer leaders become skilled in circle practice, political education, Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), public speaking and leadership development. They also build a tight web of support that becomes a second family for many.
Youth Advisory Board
To ensure that Pa’lante is truly a by-youth-for-youth program, Pa’lante has developed the YAB, a group of 8 – 10 young leaders who guide important programmatic decisions. Meeting weekly with a Director-level staff, the YAB ensures that youth gain firsthand, authentic leadership experiences as they make key decisions in areas that include budgeting, hiring, visioning and strategy.
Staff
We prioritize investing in the leadership of youth of color and hiring and retaining staff who share lived experience and identities with the Black and Brown youth with whom we work. Most of our staff (60%) are alumni and have moved through our leadership pathway, from Peer Leader to Alumni Fellows, then on to full-time salaried staff positions. Our alumni are prepared to succeed both within and beyond Pa’lante.
Board of Directors
We designed our bylaws to require the Board be made up of at least 50% current and former youth leaders. Learn more about our intergenerational Board of Directors.
Youth Leadership vs. “Letting Kids be Kids”
As explained above, youth leadership is a core value of Pa’lante on every level. However, we also know that many youth – and especially youth of color – are treated like adults much sooner than they should be and are forced to grow up faster. From caring for siblings, cousins, their own children, or taking care of themselves without parental support, there are many scenarios where teenagers of color take on more responsibility than their more resourced white counterparts. At the same time, because of adultism, youth are often told, “You can’t understand this because you’re too young, or you’re not educated enough to know what it’s like.”
We try to find the balance of creating authentic leadership opportunities, but also creating space for young people to get to experience their youth. This sometimes means offering enough support so that aspects of the program don’t need to be their responsibility. This also means employing enough adults so that youth have enough people to turn to if they need support.
While we believe in building skills like fundraising, facilitation, financial and budgetary literacy so that young people can be in the lead, we also know that in more resourced communities, youth are not tasked with those same responsibilities for their youth programs.
At the end of the day, the youth should not have to carry the program, and the weight of the world all the time. We say, “Yes, out in the world, you may have to be an adult, but right here, you can just be you.” In Pa’lante, we try to always ask: how do we support young people to be drivers of the organization without resting too much upon their shoulders?
To read more reflections on our work, check out our Transformative Justice Guidebook.