College Kids and Community: A Recipe for Radical Action

The STARC Alliance (Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations) is a two-year-old grassroots network of student and youth activist groups. We build power to challenge a social and economic system that exploits resources while reinforcing privilege and oppression. By organizing training and skills workshops, we help develop leadership and confidence among youth. By talking about the issues our corporate-sponsored education system often chooses to leave out, we are laying the foundation for a multiracial, youth-led resistance movement. We strive to focus on struggles where we can fight alongside those most affected by systems of oppression such as racism, homophobia and ableism.

The STARC Alliance (Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations) is a two-year-old grassroots network of student and youth activist groups. We build power to challenge a social and economic system that exploits resources while reinforcing privilege and oppression. By organizing training and skills workshops, we help develop leadership and confidence among youth. By talking about the issues our corporate-sponsored education system often chooses to leave out, we are laying the foundation for a multiracial, youth-led resistance movement. We strive to focus on struggles where we can fight alongside those most affected by systems of oppression such as racism, homophobia and ableism.

One way we do this is through our Community Investment Campaign, which takes dollars from university investments and reallocates them to local funds that give low-interest-rate loans to people in communities "red-lined" by banks. Red-lining excludes "high risk" communities (which usually means low-income or primarily people of color), from either loans or even low-interest loans, perpetuating debt. This creates a situation where folks cannot access the capital necessary to purchase things like cars or homes. If yore not paying a mortgage yore either squatting or paying rent. Either way, yore vulnerable to gentrification (property values go up so you get evicted) and have no property for your children to inherit, and nothing to show for years of hard work. There are non-profit institutions that offer affordable financing to low-income folks, but the capital needed to revitalize low-income communities continues to exceed available resources. Universities, which invest millions (even billions) of dollars each year, can make a huge impact on their local communities by shifting just a percent or two of their endowment into these community development investments, whose returns compare to the "non-equity" investments universities currently hold.

A second program that wre kicking off this summer is the Strong Communities Project, which has two principle objectives. The first objective is to build skills, confidence, and analysis among student and youth social justice activists. The second aim is to create local change by working with organizations that build power for people who bear the real impact of corporate greed. The STARC Alliance wants to get U.S. student activists to make real global/local links by concretely supporting the struggles of low-income people already working for social justice in our local areas on issues such as gentrification, access to capital, living wages, or police accountability.

A great way to get involved with The STARC Alliance is through our summer conference. The conference is a gathering where student leaders from around the country come together to talk about strategies for the coming year, develop skill sets through intensive training and workshops, and build the ties of community, accountability and trust that make a grassroots organization cohesive and effective. Our focus will be building our Community Investment Campaign, and launching the Strong Communities Project. We want to deepen connections between global and local issues, such as the "war on terror," and the Israel/Palestine conflict. The theme for the Summer Conference isIn Solidarity: Youth Working for Community Justic, and it will be held at Middle Tennessee State University, from August 9th through 12th. We do our best to organize it so that everyone will feel welcome and able to come. (Travel scholarships are available.) So whether yore new to this kind of work or a seasoned activist, we strive to create a place where your ideas and enthusiasm will be explored. Hope to see you there!

For more information: www.starcalliance.org, or call Anna Weir at 415-821-4047. Bio: Emma Dumont is a 20-year-old college student from USC, loves the word/idea , and has been the (volunteer) Finance Coordinator for the STARC Alliance since last August. She can be reached at finances@starcalliance.org.