Mobilizing the "Forgotten Half": Outreach Strategies for Non-College Youth
Youth not attending college are about half as likely to vote as young people with any college experience. That used to mean that this group was completely ignored. No longer—the stakes are too high. Panelists and participants will present and discuss ideas for what nonprofits, campaigns and states are doing to successfully engage this underrepresented group. We'll present an overview of how, when and what engagement looks like for this missing demographic and how systematic changes to the political system can affect participation.
The Executive Director of the League of Young Voters Education Fund, Rob "Biko" Baker is a nationally recognized leader. He has organized town hall meetings and used social networking to motivate young people to get involved in the civic process. Baker has served as the deputy publicity coordinator and young voter organizer for the Brown and Black Presidential Forum. He has appeared on C-SPAN, Fox News and MSNBC, has interviewed luminaries Cornell West, Russell Simmons, and Howard Dean, and he has also written a number of articles for America's biggest online outlets, including the Huffington Post. Baker is a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA, and serves on the New Organizing Institute's board as well as CIRCLE's research advisory board.
Surbhi Godsay joined The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) as a Researcher in June 2009. At CIRCLE, Surbhi conducts quantitative and qualitative analyses and co-produces reports for various audiences. She is primarily interested in providing research to increase the civic and political engagement among disengaged youths, ethnic minority and immigrant populations.
Ms. Godsay holds a Bachelors degree in Political Science and Mathematics from the University of Vermont. From 2007-2009 she worked for the Peace & Justice Center in Burlington, VT - a local nonprofit organization focusing on the issues of the racial, social & economic justice. From 2008-2009, she worked as a policy intern at the Vermont Commission on Women in Montpelier, VT, where she researched and performed quantitative analysis for a non-partisan policy report, The Status of Women and Girls in Vermont. She was also a member and teaching assistant of a service-learning course called Vermont Legislative Research Shop - a course which produced objective policy reports for the Vermont State Legislature.
Tarik Ross was born and raised in Pasadena, California where he still lives. Tarik has worked effectively for nearly two decades for the Amer-I-Can Foundation for Social Change serving high-risk youth and their families in the Los Angeles area and throughout the country.
He also advocates for policies that empower disenfranchised communities.
Since 2000, Tarik has worked in conjunction with former Iowa State Representative Wayne Ford the co-founder of the Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum. Tarik confers with event organizers on youth advocacy
as it relates to people of color. In December 2007 the forum featured Presidential candidates former Senator Hillary Clinton, and former Senator Barack Obama.
