Youth-Led Campaign Work

Carolina Youth Action Project began campaign work with youth leaders The young people involved in Youth Action Alliance and Youth Leader Institute worked together to discuss the issues felt urgent and important for our organization to address. Our youth leaders felt most invested in removing police officers from school and establishing a holistic sex educational curriculum designed by young people.

Our first youth-led campaigns were Safer Schools without SROs and Sex Education Beyond Abstinence!

  • Safer Schools Without SROs is a campaign to remove police officers from schools and redirect their funding to invest in student and teacher supports such as mental health counselors, student concern specialists, school psychologists, guidance counselors, crisis intervention specialists, and student/parent advocates who are extensively trained in restorative practices, trauma-informed care, and anti-oppressive youth work.

  • Sex Education Beyond Abstinence is a campaign to push for young people to have access to sex education courses that affirm queer and trans identities, and discuss consent, healthy relationships, anatomy, barriers and contraception, body positivity, sustainable hygiene products, pleasure, and abortion.

Official Campaign Platform


We are an alliance of unstoppable girls, trans youth, and gender nonconforming youth who believe another world is possible.


We believe schools are safer without SROs. We refuse to normalize the presence of police officers in schools. We believe students should feel safe, supported, and cared for rather than fearful of harassment or arrest. We reject the use of punitive practices that funnel students into the school to prison pipeline and reinforce the existence and expansion of the prison system.

We demand the removal of all SROs in Charleston County schools and in every public school across South Carolina. We demand each school release all information related to school-based arrests and SRO involvement in matters of student discipline. We demand all SRO-related funding be redirected to student and teacher supports such as mental health counselors, student concern specialists, school psychologists, guidance counselors, crisis intervention specialists, and student/parent advocates who are extensively trained in restorative practices, trauma-informed care, and anti-oppressive youth work.


We believe sex education should go way beyond the abstinence-only curriculum we have been provided. We reject South Carolina’s so-called Comprehensive Health Education Program that shamefully requires queer and trans identities to only be discussed in the context of sexually transmitted diseases, refuses to discuss sex outside of marriage, prohibits the distribution of contraceptives on school grounds, and outlaws any discussion of abortion. We believe our sex education should disrupt the dominant narratives that claim sex is inappropriate to discuss, is something to fear, or is something to be ashamed of.

We demand to receive sex education courses that are engaging, that affirm queer and trans identities, and discuss consent, healthy relationships, anatomy, barriers and contraception, body positivity, sustainable hygiene products, pleasure, and abortion. We demand that girls, trans youth, and gender nonconforming youth from across the state are integral to the designing and developing of this more radical and holistic curriculum. We demand to be taught by a qualified sex educator who believes in reproductive justice and is willing to facilitate conversations related to sexual trauma, the violent history of gynecology, and forced sterilization in the South.


 

Join the Work! 

Let us know how you would like to be involved in the work.  Send us an email and we will try to connect you where you best fit!