Teens: Youth Advocacy

Join other Texas teens in this youth-led space supported by the Austin Public Library, Library Foundation, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, and the Children's Defense Fund.

SEAT is a movement of young people developing transferable skills and demonstrating youth visibility in policymaking. By engaging in constructive action with active engagement in hands-on opportunities of advocacy and education, we're creating a vehicle for driving civic transformation as we build a social movement for bettering our communities and dismantling oppressive power structures.

VHS BBC established at the beginning of the 2021 school year with the belief that all students should have the freedom to access any book, with a safe environment to discuss them.

In its second year, Student Advocates for Speech (SAS) students have established clubs in 19 schools, spanning 15 states in the United States. The program provides participants with virtual advocacy training, opportunities to engage in national dialogues with authors, journalists, and reporters of banned books, and assistance in amplifying their voices through media interviews and op-eds.

In its inaugural year, the Austin Youth Climate Equity Council will provide a platform for student leaders to learn about and engage in local climate action efforts. They will collaborate with school and community organizations to support the Austin Independent School District’s sustainability and long-rage planning and the implementation of the City of Austin’s Climate Equity Plan.

YOUthTX advocates have contacted legislators, testified in public hearings, and spoken to reporters. They’ve moved leaders to fight for a system that works for all.

Youth Rise Texas works to support young Texans rising from systems of oppression.

OutYouth's Texas Gender & Sexuality Alliance (GSA) Network connects and empowers LGBTQIA2+ and allied youth leaders statewide so they can fearlessly be themselves while making schools safer for everyone.

Out Youth promotes the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social well-being of sexual and gender minority youth so that they can openly and safely explore and affirm their identities.