History and Mission
Community Call, a 501(c)(3), teaches marginalized high school youth how to dissect the news and empowers them to civically engage through experiential learning and collaboration on social justice issues. Students learn how to collect and process information in an overloaded news world and to decipher what news is relevant to them, research facts to take a position, and produce a project addressing the issue. Our school year programs in Boston and Cambridge provide student-centered programming that develops self-confidence, empowerment, and leadership skills to encourage youth to become civically informed and engage for a lifetime. Our programming and facilitation leaders are from the Harvard Graduate School of Education as part of a collaboration to provide graduate students with outside educational experience in social justice and civic engagement programming.
Community Call has been recognized by the Boston City Council, the Boston Youth Services Network, Harvard University, Boston Latin School, and the City of Boston for outstanding youth and social justice programming. We connect youth through collaboration with community partners, government officials, and agencies to address broader community issues the students choose to address. Sample student chosen topics include: youth homelessness, youth suicide, gang violence, bullying, gentrification, self-esteem, and racial justice. Our students define their own agenda from objectives to action.
Our student-run, racial justice program, YouthWOKE, meets at the Boston Public School Headquarters during the school year on Fridays from 3:30 – 5:30. The program has been recognized with the Boston Latin’s School’s Social Justice Award, featured on Boston Network News, chosen to present at a Harvard, and presented at the Boston Public School Teachers Social Justice Forum.