Our Community

Chicago's Southwest Youth Collaborative serves primarily the West Elsdon, Gage Park, West Lawn, Chicago Lawn, and West Englewood community areas. These communities are communities in transition; over the last 30 years, large numbers of predominantly older, working class white residents have moved out and predominantly younger, lower-income and immigrant families of color with children have moved in.

Census Data

The following statistics are compiled from 2000 census data coving the Chicago Lawn, West Lawn, West Englewood, Gage Park, and West Elsdon community areas: Of the residents living in these communities, 24% are foreign born and 63% of those residents are not naturalized citizens. Of the population 5 years or older, 45% speak a language other than English and further dissection reveals that 83% of that population speak Spanish and 61% speak English less than very well. They face tremendous barriers that prohibit them from attaining a living-wage salary; there is a high rate of illiteracy among youth and adults; and school age children, especially, face tremendous challenges on both sides of the coin. Children struggle with learning and understanding school subject matter due to their lack of command of the English language and they find little support at home because parents cannot speak the language themselves and many have stunted educational experience. 50% of the adult population 25 years of age and older have a high school degree or less.

Many of these communities are overwhelmed with gang violence, high dropout and unemployment rates, and a lack of youth programs and family support services. For instance, the combined average jobless and unemployment rate for youth between the ages of 16 and 19 years is 95%. In addition, the combined average dropout and out of school rate for this same population is 42%; and an average of 25% of all persons in the 6 communities areas living in poverty and extreme poverty.

There is also a high need for after school programming for youth in these communities. With more and more parents working longer hours outside the home, many children lack adult supervision during late afternoon and early evening hours. Unsupervised children are at risk of being exposed to and engaged in a myriad of risky behaviors.

It is widely known at this point, that the hours after school are peak hours for: teens to commit crimes, youth to become victims of a crime, teen sex and youth use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, and youth involvement in gangs. As it relates to risky teen sex practices, AIDS was the 5th leading cause of death for females between the ages of 15-24 in 2001. Young adults and teens continue to be at risk of HIV infection, especially women and minorities. At least 11% of all recently diagnosed HIV infections are among those between the ages of 13-24. Among HIV infections in the 13 to 24 age group, young girls now represent 38% of new HIV infections, young African Americans represent 65%, young Latinos represent 19%, while whites account for just 14% of new HIV infections in this age group.

Furthermore, SWYC is one of only a handful of community based organizations serving a populous made up of 47,298 families and 36,578 youth ages 10 to 19 years of age. To be sure, this statistical data paints a woeful picture for youth living in these communities. In response however, SWYC has developed an array of accessible, innovative, and youth-responsive programs, which provide a comprehensive system of educational, recreational, cultural, vocational, and leadership development opportunities for low-income youth, youth of color, youth who are deficient in basic skills and/or whose primary language is not English.

Our History

Over the Past 15 years we've created real opportunities for young people to develop and grow by...

Implementing the Project YES Educational and College Preparation Program to provide services in and out of schools to motivate, prepare, and assist students in finishing high school and entering college.

Creating the Greater Lawn Community Youth Network After School and Summer Camp programs, which provide homework assistance, cultural awareness activities, life skills workshops, and family and community building.

Establishing the Urban Options Workforce Development Program to develop job skills for youth and entrepreneurial businesses through field trips, trainings, mentorship, and business planning.

Providing summer employment for hundreds of youth and placing hundreds of others in outside job and internship positions.

Establishing the University of Hip Hop to teach youth history, philosophy, and methods of various art forms of creative expression.

Founding the International Youth Leadership Institute, through which we have sent and hosted delegations of youth and community leaders to and from Cape Town, South Africa; Brussels, Belgium; Mexico City, Mexico; Guatemala; and Caracas, Venezuela.

Developing the Technology Undivided Program and 5 Community Technology Center Labs, which provide youth technology programming, computer access, and media resources to bridge the "digital divide" between technological haves and have-nots.

Creating the Southwest Athletic Club Sports Leadership Program, involving sports and health programs in which volunteers are involved in helping children to make responsible decisions both on and off the playing field as well as training youth to become future coaches and mentors.

Establishing the first Youth Soccer League in Marquette Park with over 500 Latino, Arab, White and African-American youth participating.

Over the past 15 years we have organized for power through building relationships of mutual respect among people of different races, ethnicities, faiths, genders and ages by...

Establishing Generation Y, a youth activist organization led by dedicated young people who are trained in community organizing and who are carry out campaigns to effect change around social and public policies impacting youth and families in the areas of education, employment, and welfare.

Creating Sisters Organized for United Leadership (SOUL), a project where young women come together as mothers, daughters, aunts, friends, and sisters to celebrate life and organize for equality and justice through the arts, technology, and action.

Establishing Families Organizing for Real Change and Empowerment (FORCE), a grass-roots, multi-racial and multi-ethnic organization working on the southwest side to unite a thousand families to create positive change and improve the community in which we live.

Running the Summer Youth Liberation Institute, based on the Mississippi Freedom School, as an intensive 7-week training/internship focused on developing intergenerational, multi-racial, and gender balanced youth leadership for social justice and institutional change around issues affecting youth and families.

Over the past 15 years we have worked to build a diverse source of funding that creates greater self-sustainability by...

Establishing the Southwest Youth Collaborative Endowment Fund to support general operations and development of the organization.

Conducting on-going grass-roots fundraising and training staff, youth, and board members in developing such campaigns.

Researching and exploring social entrepreneurship as a long term method for developing sustainability.

Developing a long-term strategic development and marketing plan, which includes a comprehensive database, expanding our individual donor base and our corporate sponors.

Stepping to the forefront of non-profit technology by transfering nearly all of our IT systems to Open Source and Free Software technologies.

Over the past 15 years we have developed a long-term vision for social change by...

Strengthening the capacities of those directly affected by policies that systematically marginalize and dominate communities of color in order to be part of a local, regional, and national movement for racial, economic, and gender equity justice.

Developing a new five-year strategic plan, which will address areas of organizational, community, and resource development.

On-going professional development of new leaders and organizers who play major roles in our development and vision and go on to do the same for various other organizations in Chicago and beyond.

Over the past 15 years we have striven to build long-lasting alliances which benefit the communities and people that we work with and which promote our mission and vision by...

Co-founding the Council of Southwest Organizations for Youth, made up of more than thirty community organizations, social service agencies, and public institutions.

Co-founding the Community Justice Initiative, an alliance of policy organizations, universities, and community-based youth organizations developing a city-wide progressive youth movement.

Developing working relationships with universities, including Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, Depaul University, Northern Illinois University, Williams College, Northeastern Illinois University, and the City Colleges of Chicago.

Building working relationships with the following public schools: Harper, Curie, Bogan, Kelly, Gage Park, Hubbard, and Kennedy; also with Marquette, Eberhart, and Henderson Elementary Schools.

Strengthening relationships with officials from city departments, including the Mayor's Office of Workforce Development, Department of Human Services, Department of Public Health, After School Matters, and Chicago Park District.

Organizing and supporting regional and national coalitions around issues of criminal and juvenile justice, welfare, youth development and organizing with the Center for Third World Organizing, Community Justice Network for Youth, GrassRoots Organizing for Welfare Leadership, YouthAction, and the Applied Research Center, among others.

Chronological History

1992

• Southwest Youth Collaborative founded in Chicago Lawn, West Englewood, West Lawn, Gage Park, and West Elsdon.
• Community-based Board of Directors is elected to represent different community areas and ethnic groups. It is also decided that half of the board will be under the age of 18.

1994

• Youth board members of SWYC form the Youth Empowerment Network to help foster youth leadership and activism.

1995

• Youth Empowerment Network begins working with the Children & Family Justice Center at NU Law School to offer street law classes to youth after police brutalizes a youth member.

1996

• Generation Y is founded as a youth activist organization by members of the SWYC board, youth leaders of various programs, and young adult staff. Generation Y members join Kids Not Criminals, a citywide alliance opposed to the criminalization of youth.

1997

• Community Justice Initiative formed as a citywide coalition of youth and policy organizations around the criminalization of youth.
• Hubbard high school students and Generation Y members start the University of Hip Hop.

1999

• Generation Y launches its first successful local youth organizing campaign around summer jobs cuts.
• The Jobs for Youth Campaign helps prevent the City of Chicago from eliminating nearly 15,000 summer jobs and brings more job opportunities to southwest side youth.
• Youth organizers from the Community Justice Initiative organize a Youth Summit on the 100th anniversary of the juvenile court. The Youth Summit, attended by more than 700 youth and adult allies, helps to launch the Youth First campaign in 2000.
• Teenage women and female staff of the SWYC create SOUL (Sisters Organized for United Leadership), a young women's empowerment program.

2000

• The citywide Youth First Campaign is launched, focusing on ending the criminalization of youth and increasing the amount of money in the City of Chicago budget allocated for positive youth programs.
• Generation Y launches the Right to Learn Campaign, which exposes the racially-biased use of suspensions and expulsions in the Chicago Public School system.

2001

• The Youth First Campaign helps to increase the City of Chicago's budget for youth by $2.5 million.
• The Right to Learn Campaign helps to put pressure on CPS to increase the number of peer juries to 25 high schools.

2002

• Generation Y launches the Higher Learning Campaign, which seeks to increase college preparation and higher education opportunities for low-income students of color.
• The Youth First Campaign shifts to focus on citywide education issues and education funding reform.

2003

• The Higher Learning Campaign convinces the Board of Education to launch the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) Program in eight high schools, to help students in the academic middle to take academically rigorous courses and attend four-year colleges and universities.

2004

• Generation Y launches the Still We Rise Campaign focused on racial profiling, police brutality, and undocumented immigrant rights. The campaign builds alliances with the Justice Coalition of Greater Chicago, around police accountability, and with the United Food and Commercial Workers, around undocumented immigrant and workers' rights.

Board & Staff

2007 Board of Directors

Amanda Avilez
Fatimeh Baeshen
Anthony Ball
Jenkins Cooper
Alfonso Cortez
Otis Cunningham
Brandon JnoBaptiste
Elena Lopez
Mahmoud Monsour
David Montes
Dearian Reynolds
Nicholas Rodarte
Isabel Rodriguez
Arquilla Stewart
John Telli
Graciela Torres
Agoberto Villafuerte
Phillip Washington
Mildred Williamson
Celia Yniquez
John Ziegler

Southwest Youth Collaborative Staff

Camille Odeh

Executive Director
773.476.3534 x 224
codeh(at)swyc.org

Jonathan Peck

Associate Director; Organizing & Projects
773.476.3534
jpeck(at)swyc.org

Sonia Diaz-Rangel

Associate Director; Programs & Services
773.476.3534 x 263
sdrangel(at)swyc.org

James Hollins

Program Director; Urban Options
773.476.3534 x 237
jhollins(at)swyc.org

Lynda Lukasick

Finance Director
773.476.3534 x 260
llukasick(at)swyc.org

Michelle Belcher

Finance Assistant
773.476.3534 x 222
mbelcher(at)swyc.org

Florence Johnson

Development Director
773.476.3534 x 257
fjohnson(at)swyc.org

Mario Gonzalez Jr.

Arts & Culture Director; University of Hip Hop; 64th Street Gallery
773.476.3534 x 259
mario(at)swyc.org

Eliza Solowiej

Director of Organizing; Community Organizing Initiative
773.476.3534 x 245
eliza(at)swyc.org

David Marques

IT Director; Technology Undivided
773.476.3534 x 231
dmarques(at)swyc.org

Harish Patel

Administrative Coordinator
773.476.3534 x 221
harishi(at)swyc.org

Khadijah Mial

Administrative Assistant
khadijah(at)swyc.org

Keith Gordon

Program Coordinator; Technology Undivided
keith(at)swyc.org

Sarai Graves

Program Coordinator; Technology Undivided
sgraves(at)swyc.org

Regi Raliff

Program Director; Southwest Athletic Club
rratliff(at)swyc.org

Fatimeh Sayyad Program Coordinator; Southwest Athletic Club

Maria Sarabia

Program Coordinator; Urban Options, SOUL
msarabia(at)swyc.org

Dwayne Selmon

Program Coordinator; Amandla Center

Maggie Bonjean

Policy Coordinator; Urban Options
773.476.3534 x 261
mbonjean(at)swyc.org

Josephine Robinson

Program Director; Project YES, Gage Park HS
773.535.0485
jrobinson(at)swyc.org

Duan Rounds

Program Coordinator; Project YES, Gage Park HS
duan(at)swyc.org

Camile Williamson

Program Director; Project YES, Hubbard HS ETS
773.476.3534 x 263
cwilliamson(at)swyc.org

Jada Hoskins

Program Specialist; Project YES, Hubbard HS ETS
773.476.3534 x 263
jhoskins(at)swyc.org

Sandra Sosa

Program Director; Project YES, GLCYN
773.434.2001
ssosa(at)swyc.org

Sherry Brown

Program Coordinator; Project YES, GLCYN
773.434.2001
sbrown(at)swyc.org

Jackie Rodriguez

Program Coordinator; Project YES, GLCYN
773.434.2001
canoice11(at)yahoo.com

Juan Rodriguez

Program Coordinator; University of Hip Hop, Breakdance
773.476.3534 x 259
epek(at)swyc.org

Jonathan St. Claire

Program Coordinator; University of Hip Hop, Breakdance
inlight13(at)hotmail.com

Liliana Paniagua

Program Coordinator; Urban Options, University of Hip Hop; 64th Street Gallery
773.476.3534 x 259
liliana(at)swyc.org

Shaun Ortega

Program Coordinator; University of Hip Hop, DJing/Music

Jessie Belton

Youth Organizer; Generation Y
jessie(at)swyc.org

Alexandrea Navedo

Youth Organizer; Generation Y
anavedo(at)swyc.org

Toni Holimon

Program Specialist; Generation Y, Community Justice
toni(at)swyc.org

Sara Ann Hogue

Youth Organizer; SOUL
schapin1(at)students.depaul.edu

Tera Burke

Youth Organizer; Generation Y
tera(at)swyc.org

Kate Calimquim

Youth Organizer; Generation Y
kate(at)swyc.org

Teresa Miller

Youth Organizer; Generation Y
teresa(at)swyc.org

Heather Hoffman

Youth Organizer; Generation Y
heather(at)swyc.org

Pablo Palominos

Consultant; Generation Y
mapuche63(at)yahoo.com

Nadya Engler

Researcher
773.476.3534 x 257
nengler(at)swyc.org

Theonita Wright

Program Coordinator; Project YES
theonita(at)swyc.org

Awards & Appreciations

Awards & Appreciations

• The National Indivisible Project of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, in partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, the University of Arizona: One of 12 community organizations chosen nation-wide to be documented through a museum exhibition of original photographs and recorded voices, as well as two postcard exhibitions, that traveled to 9 museums in 9 different states. A book was produced called Local Heroes Changing America: Indivisible.
• The Youth Voice Award presented by Community TV Network (2001). An award given to groups for activitely promoting the development of youth and creating organizing strategies to empower youth: For bringing youth issues to the forefront of public awareness while training youth in activism and leadership.
• The Young Heroes Award presented by the Chicago Council on Urban Affairs and WVON Radio (2000): For outstanding work with children and youth.
• The Excellence Award presented by Southwest Women Working Together (2000): For women's rights and social justice work.
• Centro La Paz Award presented by Centro La Paz in appreciation for outstanding and dedicated service to the community.
  
• The Community Panels for Youth Certificate of Appreciation presented by the Children and Family Justice Center at the Northwestern University School of Law (2000): For valuable service in the development of the Community Panels for Youth Program; for sincere commitment to community, youth, and families; and for leadership and dedication in making the program in southwest Chicago a success.
• The Neighborhoods Award presented by Chicago Council on Urban Affairs (1999): For dedicated work improving the lives of children, youth, and families throughout the neighborhoods of Chicago.
• The Volunteer Community Service Award presented by Kelly High School Service Learning Club (1999): For continuous and valuable service.
• The Northeastern Illinois University's Department of Criminal Justice Award (1999 and 2000): For exemplary dedication to justice for children and youth and for fulfilling the vision of balanced and restorative justice.
• The 8th District Youth/Police Forum Certificate of Recognition four years in a row presented by the 8th District Youth Police Steering Committee (1999-2002): For commitment to increasing understanding and building trust between youth and police and moving Chicago toward the vision of a bias-free city.
• The Human Rights Award twice presented by the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (1994 and 2000): For unrelenting commitment and outstanding contributions to the struggle for human rights.
• The Sisterhood Award presented by Southwest Sisterhood Collective (1998): For dedicated work to improving the lives of women and our communities.
• The Leadership Greater Chicago Award presented by the Leadership Greater Chicago Consortium (1998): One of 35 organizations chosen to participate in a year-long process of building bridges between cutting edge community leaders and organizations.
• The Bannerman Memorial Fellowship (1997): In recognition of community involvement.
• The Ron Sable Activism Award presented by the Crossroads Fund (1994): For carrying on with visionary imagination, fierce commitment and a passion for justice.

"Our success will and must be measured in the happiness and welfare of our children, at once the most vulnerable citizens in any society and the greatest of our treasures." - Nelson Mandela