Vision

Advocates for Youth envisions a society in which all young people are valued, respected and treated with dignity; sexuality is accepted as a healthy part of being human; and youth sexual development is normalized  and embraced.  In such a world, all youth and young adults are celebrated for who they are and afforded honest, affirming, inclusive sex education; access to confidential, universal sexual health services; and the economic, educational, and social power to exercise their bodily autonomy and make informed decisions regarding their health and well-being.

Mission Statement

Advocates for Youth partners with young people and their adult allies to champion youth rights to bodily autonomy and build power to transform policies, programs and systems to secure sexual health and equity for all youth.

Advocates believes it can best serve the field, and ultimately have the largest impact on improving youth sexual health and rights, by working in partnership with youth and their adult allies, including youth-serving institutions.  Doing so, we will be able to shift the current cultural paradigm in which we live from one that too often stigmatizes youth and youth sexual development to one that embraces youth as partners and recognizes sexuality as normal and healthy. Advocates recognizes that poverty, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, racism, and sexism fuel sexual health disparities. The organization seeks to redress these social determinants by working in coalition with economic and social justice organizations and by engaging, empowering, and mobilizing young people from marginalized communities to serve as activists and leaders in the field of sexual health. Advocates’ Youth Activist Network, currently 75,000 strong on 1,200 campuses and in tens of thousands of communities in the U.S. and more than 120 countries around the world, is core to the organization’s niche and brand.

Advocates’ role is to further nurture and support this pipeline of diverse youth leaders and to partner with them and their adult allies to boldly advocate for changes in the cultural and political environment and to champion program strategies that improve youth sexual health. To that end, Advocates also will work to build the capacity of youth-serving professionals to implement evidence- and rights-based sexual health strategies and to engage young people as partners in their work.

Advocates’ Youth Activist Network stands 75,000 strong on 1,200 campuses and in tens of thousands of communities.

Values

Advocates’ Rights, Respect, Responsibility philosophy underpins all of the organization’s work:

Rights: Youth have the inalienable right to honest, inclusive sex education; confidential, universal sexual health services; and the economic, political and social power that supports their agency, bodily autonomy,  and self-determination.

Respect: Youth are due respect. They are leading the fight for equity and justice. Young people must be meaningfully involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of systems, policies and programs that affect their health and well-being.

Responsibility: Society has the responsibility to examine and dismantle systems of oppression that drive sexual health disparities and other inequities and to instead champion community initiatives, programs, policies, and systems that  ensure equity and justice for all young people, their families and communities.

Advocates for Youth EIN#  is 52-1173590.