The New Jersey Youth Empowerment Project is a two-day training conference for youth activists, organizers, and leaders in New Jersey. This conference seeks to train 100-150 students & youth to organize their communities and campuses, around issues that we, the youth of New Jersey, care about.

This conference is being held by New Jersey United Students (NJUS), a statewide network of college students organizing around education rights and building student and youth power. NJUS seeks to build a united youth movement working on a multiplicity of issues, so that our generation can get a say in the world we live in. This conference is the first step.

The Youth Empowerment Project seeks to give students the skills to organize their communities. For that reason, we will be offering two types of trainings. On Saturday, August 4, we will be doing an Electoral Action Training (EAT), which teaches students how to run a concerted voter registration effort. Voter registration is a great and simple way to talk to youth about the issues that affect them. On Sunday, August 5, we will be doing a GrassRoots Organizing Weekend (GROW) training. GROW teaches you how to run non-electoral campaigns: how to build your organization, figure out goals, targets, and what you need to do to run a campaign.

The Youth Empowerment Project will also launch our NJ Students Vote! 2012 campaign. NJUS is seeking to register 20,000 NJ students to vote in the November 2012 elections. We at NJUS believe that an effective way to build youth power is by showing our strength at the ballot box—although by all means, we don’t think it’s the only way.  This campaign is a step towards building a bigger movement! Will you join us?

Logistics

The conference will be August 4-5, starting at 11 AM, at the Labor Education Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. We want students to be able to come to this conference, so the cost of attendance is $10. This goes toward the costs of supplies and food for both days.

For housing, we will be getting price quotes from local hotels, but for a low-cost option, we will be setting up housing at the Second Reformed Church on College Ave, New Brunswick. For more information on housing, select the options you are interested in on the Registration Form.

To Register: Fill out a Registration form available here, to check the facebook event, click here

For more information:

Contact Rachel Storch at (201) 563-0353 or by e-mail at Rachel.Storch93@Gmail.com