As a reminder, we are still working to celebrate Y-PLAN @20! On May 1, 2020, our 20th anniversary, we posted the reflections of some of our project partners, staff, clients, coordinators and alumni.

Improving education and cultivating civic agency through developing real world skills, practices, and partnerships.

Transportation provides access to all other arenas of life. Y-PLAN scholars suggest improvements to provide greater and more equitable connection, safety, dignity and opportunities.

California is facing an unprecedented housing crisis. Young people across the state feel its pressures, and they know how to help.

In early March 2020, Y-PLAN completed the last field trip of the semester, just one week before UC Berkeley, and most of the Bay Area, moved operations online because of COVID-19. Since then Y-PLAN has been working hard to uplift student work that had been done before the shutdown and to engage students through online education. This blog is a reflection by Y-PLAN Project Coordinator Selena Perez about our final Y-PLAN field trip this year with 8th grade students from Escuela Popular in San Jose. Our Y-PLAN team was still able to engage with students online as they continued their project with our clients, Silicon Valley @ Home, finding ways we can protect, preserve, and produce affordable housing.

When we think of social justice movements, we have a tendency to gravitate towards scenes of people taking to the streets and marching. We fall in love with the iconic images of historic figures such as Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Angela Davis and the list goes on. We seldom consider classrooms serving as foundational pillars of social change. Here at the University of California Berkeley Center for Cities + Schools (CC+S), we believe change begins in the classroom, and educators and their students are the true conductors of change and transformation within their neighborhoods.

One of the most important components of the Y-PLAN process is the Site Visit and Neighborhood Walk. Earlier this year, Y-PLAN site visits were in full force with at least one happening every week. One of our first field trips in February was the Skyline High School, Green Academy field trip in Oakland, CA.

This year Y-PLAN is expanding to Southern California and is partnering with the LA County Regional Planning Department and Rowland High School in Rowland Heights, to answer the following question “How can Rowland Heights attract and retain young people?” One of the most important components of the Y-PLAN process is for students to get out of their classrooms and tour their community and project site

“How can you expect us to come up with solutions for revitalizing our community when we just lost everything?”

This year, fifth grade students at Verde Elementary School in North Richmond, California, took on a local “real world” challenge: How can we beautify the public spaces in our neighborhood while celebrating our community history and pride? Professional architects and planners engaged the students in a series of hands-on studio workshops using the Y-PLAN 5-step methodology in the spring. Then over the summer, 100 TOMODACHI Y-PLAN Japanese students also engaged in the Y-PLAN process as they focused on North Richmond. Inspired by the work of the younger local students, they generated a set of long-term and short-term recommendations about how the community might become more vibrant, creative, and connected. Within the framework of their long-term proposals, four groups of 25 students each also generated a plan to build out one small component of their vision during a Day of Action. Read more about the exciting connections made and actions students took in North Richmond!