Last Friday we kicked things back of with an amazing taskforce meeting, pushing forward with our campaign goals.  Great to see new faces, ready to fight for our rights. Breaking into groups, to push our force out there, can get people ready to listen to us, speak up and speak out!!! So inspiring to see our force growing, look out Chicago!!!! You will be hearing us roar, about what is rightfully ours. Enjoy the heat because we coming out in the fall, taking the streets back, voicing our need for all to hear!!!!

Saturday was another great one we were out there for the 6^th annual Latino LGBTQA Pride Picnic. Cooking up some burgers, and serving out some Movement Building!! It was great to connect with some amazing youth from The Center for Change. Look forward to building with them more around our campaign and many more ways we will stand in Solidarity with them. So many great people came out almost felt like a family gathering, and it was great to have this opportunity to surround ourselves with our allies. Our very own C. Angel Torres even got on the stage, for the drag show, bringing out Christopher Love who has been hiding from the public stage far too long. Well their back and hope to grace Latino Pride’s stage for many years to come.

YWEP has been extra busy with campaign work, from taskforce meeting to culling our Bad Encounter Line.  We still managed to find time to write an article for The Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls & Young Women latest Occasional Paper Series. Written by myself C. Angel Torres and Naima Paz we are very excited to be a part of this special paper series that seems to be putting youth at the forefront.   This article is all about our Bad Encouter Line and was even featured on the blog Feministing!

I would also like to take a moment out to thank, all of our allies, friends, and monthly sustainers. We could not be lucky enough to be doing this work if it wasn’t for you!!! I’d like to remind you though, we are still in the process of trying to build our independent base through our friends of YWEP monthly sustainers program we are asking folks to give $5 dollars, or whatever you can afford a month, to help us keep afloat in these tough economic times, I’m sure your aware fundraising is hard, but with you behind us, we can continue to push forth, and reach hundreds of girls through our outreach. You have no idea how much this means to us. So in gratitude for signing up to be a monthly sustainer we will send you our new Christie Road Campaign poster, and some Friends of YWEP buttons!!! If you can give more than $5 a month we will send you our exclusive limited edition silk screen campaign poster, few are even aware of its existence!!