Amherst: University of Massachusetts Extension

Since the mid-1990s, El Arco Iris Youth and Community Arts Center has run the YouthPower Project in South Holyoke, Massachusetts. YouthPower has worked to get young people involved in planning and building a better neighborhood and has worked with the youth to create an alternative youth-centered planning process.

In addition to involving more than 150 young people in the city's master plan and urban design processes, YouthPower has designed and painted murals, redesigned and renovated open spaces including a park, developed its own community maps, been an active participant in neighborhood planning workshops, and created street banners. It has also led workshops on planning issues with other youth.

The YouthPower Guide describes many of YouthPower's most successful planning activities and explains how others can apply them in their neighborhoods. It was written to be used by young people aged 10 to 19, working in an after-school setting, and by people who work with these youth. This manual transfers the YouthPower experience to other groups and allows them to effect change in their own neighborhoods.

The first and main part of the YouthPower Guide--called Build Your Team! Dream It! Plan It! Do It!--describes 24 of these activities ranging from "Deciding on your purpose," "Brainstorming a vision of your ideal community," and doing a "Neighborhood tour," to "Getting community input and support," "Making a project work plan," and "Doing the project."

These activities can be done separately but, when combined, they add up to a comprehensive neighborhood planning and improvement process. Each activity is designed to be accomplished in one or two hour-and-a-half sessions.

This manual leads other youth groups through the steps and processes necessary to both change the physical neighborhood through specific projects and more generally to address the more complex issues of neighborhood planning and urban design.

YouthPower Guide