OUR STORY

The Idaho Youth For Change (IYFC) Collective came to be as many small movements do: a small group of individuals identified a need in their community and they began organizing and activating to address it. In this case, it was a small group of youth who were providing peer to peer healthy relationship education in their rural Idaho community. In 2018, they were invited to a state-wide planning session where they were surprised to find out there were other groups of young people doing similar work throughout Idaho. They wanted to get together to learn from and support one another. They had an idea. Let’s have a Summit! And let’s open it up to any youth in Idaho who has a desire to foster and cultivate positive change in their communities. Soon, multiple partnerships formed across the state, including youth activists and adult allies, and we  became the IYFC Summit Planning Committee. We united around our group-created mission: by nurturing the conditions for self-empowerment, the Idaho Youth for Change Collective will strengthen skills, build relationships, and spark equitable, healthy, and thriving communities across Idaho. We were able to pull off our first IYFC Summit in the Fall of 2020, amid a global pandemic. Today, the Collective works to unite youth through an annual Summit, provide ongoing educational opportunities for youth and adults working with youth to help connect leaders across Idaho, and share best practices in advocacy and organizing. The IYFC Collective uses an upstream public health approach rooted in a health equity framework to guide their work. 

Thank you to all of our partnerships throughout the state for creating this space. Our relationships drive our work and cultivate lasting positive change throughout Idaho.

2021:

• IYFC Collective first planning meeting of 2021- The IYFC Collective came together to discuss the things to come this year!