About Us
OUR MISSION.
GENup is a California based, statewide student-led social justice organization and student-activist coalition that strives to advocate for education through the power of youth voices!
THEORY OF IMPACT.
Here at GENup we have a very unique model of change and theory of impact: we seek to legislate and organize for educational policy reform through a unique combination of community organizing and policy organizing. Here at GENup, we call it the "two-pronged approach." GENup Chapters, delineated by school districts, working directly with student board members to effect local policy reform within their communities. GENup Chapters are the community organizers, and serve to organize students, parents, and teachers through our unique organizing structure of regional anchors and student ambassadors. Student board members are the policy liaisons and policy experts/developers; the combination of these two together creates a powerful and unstoppable organizing powerhouse.
OUR STORY.
Borne at the wake of many teacher strikes and educational funding disputes, GENup is for the students by the students. From its bottom to top, youth run all aspects of GENup. We strive to be a long term agent and champion of educational advocacy and change.
Through community and grassroots organizing engagement of youth, we seek to consistently fight for student representation and youth perspectives on all facets of education advocacy.
GENup seeks to fight for an education system that prioritizes students and educators first: an education system where all students have equal access to resources, a system where educators have a fair, living wage, and an education system that allows its students and teachers to thrive within their communities.
We aren’t fighting for the impossible, we are simply making the impossible, possible.
HOW WE DO IT.
GEN-Up is simple in its goal and relentless in its pursuit. We seek to do one thing and one thing only: to win for the students, by the students. GEN-Up utilizes strategic approaches to legislate for action and lobby for success. We use effective grass-roots organizing to facilitate communication networks among youth. Using the power and voice of students, we believe we can make change. It’s time we finally learn how to harness this power and achieve much needed educational advancements.
GEN-Up works closely with numerous activist organizations in its organizational coalition to create restorative justice in all facets of educational reform.
Our goal is to bring all student-based stakeholders in the Californian community together into one large-body to utilize its centered power to advocate for educational issues and causes! We seek to build an expansive network of student-leaders, innovators, activists, and organizations that would work together to fight for a singular cause, in a united and powerful front. Through our expansive net-works and pooled student resources, we seek to mobilize the youth in all manners of educational activism; Whether that be aggressive social media advocacy, legislative lobbying, or field-work reaching to grassroot levels of canvassing and phone banking.