YouthBuild:

"Our America" Town Hall

Nearly 500 low-income youth from across the nation gathered to raise their voices at an unprecedented town hall event, "Our America," held April 1 in Washington , D.C and co-hosted by YouthBuild USA and Think.mtv.com. The event featured young leaders who presented the Declaration of Inter-dependence, a youth-written document detailing comprehensive policy recommendations on key issues including public education, family, crime and the economy. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and the Rev. Jesse Jackson also spoke at the event.

View clips from the “Our America” Town Hall below. To read the media advisory, click here

YouthBuild is a youth and community development program that works to break the cycle of poverty by addressing core issues facing low-income communities: housing, education, employment, crime prevention and leadership development. In YouthBuild programs, low-income young people ages 16-24 work toward their GED or high school diploma while learning job skills by building affordable housing for homeless and low-income people.

Since 1994, more than 76,000 YouthBuild students have produced 17,000 units of low-income housing. Today, there are 226 YouthBuild programs in 43 states, Washington , D.C. , Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands , engaging approximately 8,000 young adults each year. To learn more about YouthBuild, visit www.youthbuild.org.