Mission
Youth United for Community Action, a grassroots community-organization created, led, and run by young people of color, majority from low-income communities, provides a safe space for young people to empower ourselves and work on environmental and social justice issues to establish positive systemic change through grassroots community organizing.

Youth United for Community Action is a project of The Tides Center.

History and Background
In May '94, YUCA launched its Fighting Injustice and Regulating Equality (FIRE) Fellowship Program, formerly known as the Irvine Fellowship Program. The FIRE Fellows Program provides young people of color with paid summer internships at community-based, environmental and social justice organizations in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and engages them in a a year-long organizing project. Three years later in the summer of 1997, YUCA participants came together in response to rising interest and participation in the FIRE Fellows Program and developed Higher Learning (HL), a program led by and for high school-aged youth. The goal of Higher Learning is to create a safe space for high school youth to critically examine and act on issues that impact them and their communities.

Organizational Constituency
YUCA’s constituents are young people of color, ages 13 to 30, in the Bay Area. The organization was founded on the belief that effective youth programs should deeply involve young people at all levels of the organization. As a result, YUCA is led and run entirely by young people of color who define their own needs, and determine and implement their own vision. The specific constituency of the Higher Learning program is low-income youth of color, ages 13-19 living in East Palo Alto and surrounding communities.