Fall 2026: September 23 - NOVEMBER 20
WEDNESDAYS & fridayS, 3-6:30pm
Ages 13+
Rooted & Routed: Practice Makes Power!
with Claire Cousin & Enrique Rivera
Building from our summer season’s theme, “Rooted & Routed”, we’re moving from learning about the history and power of youth activism to putting those lessons into practice. This season is grounded in the belief that performance and collective creation are tools for liberation, leadership, and community power. We'll explore how storytelling, campaign building, and advocacy are shaped and strengthened by youth organizing.
Participants will engage in artistic and collaborative processes that build critical consciousness, historical awareness, and organizing skills as a way of exploring political concepts through ACTION. We’ll learn the basics of collecting and sharing community stories, find ways to preserve those stories through local archives, and work together to build an advocacy campaign around an issue that matters to us.
Throughout the program, youth are positioned not only as learners, but as culture keepers, historians, artists, and emerging leaders. We’ll end the season with a free local event where young people can educate their community and showcase what they’ve created. We got ROOTED in movement history. Now we’re ROUTING the path forward by turning what we’ve learned into action, stories, and youth power.
Programs will be located at Kite’s Nest, 58 North Front St., Hudson, NY 12534
We are currently accepting SJLA Youth Staff positions (ages 16+ with working papers).
Participation in the SJLA Summer 2026 program is recommended, but not required.
Email hello@kitesnest.org or call 518-241-3540 with any questions.
MORE ABOUT SJLA
ART, MEDIA & CREATIVE EXPRESSION
Throughout the year we use art to express and explore ideas, to ask questions, to reflect, to share, and to transform ourselves and each other. We collaborate with professional music producers, photographers, media-makers and poets to write and record songs, make visual art, screenprint t-shirts, shoot photography projects and films, write and perform poetry, choreograph dances, create public art, etc. Art supports us to take control of our own narratives: share and reflect on our lived experiences; develop our radical imaginations; mobilize our communities for action; and celebrate our joyful and creative selves.
TRANSFORMATION & HEALING
SJLA is a safe and loving space for youth to engage in the transformative work of self-discovery, identity development, and community care. In employing teens and supporting youth leaders, we intentionally work to disrupt patterns of toxicity and burnout within community activism and work — instead always centering joy and creativity, and holding space for land-based ceremony. Youth develop the skills to support the mental health of themselves and their loved ones, connect with the healing traditions of their own communities and lineages, tap into the healing potential already within us, and explore the intersections of collective healing, wellness, and justice.
POLITICAL EDUCATION
Through hands-on workshops and deep discussions, we develop our critical awareness and understanding of systems of power, privilege, and oppression. We learn about issues impacting our lives & communities, exploring policing, food insecurity, housing displacement and gentrification, incarceration, deportation, educational injustice, colonialism, gender and sexuality, and more. We learn about movements for liberation, and together we develop our visions for making our own community a more just, safe, and liberatory place.
YOUTH-LED ORGANIZING
We organize for action! We learn about the roles that people play in movements, and consider each of our own skills and passions. Are you an artist, a warrior, a builder, a healer, a storyteller? What kind of power do you bring to your community? We learn skills and strategies for making change, research issues in our community and design our own creative actions and campaigns. At the end of the summer session we plan and host an epic public event for our families and neighbors, inviting them into our growing movement, as we prepare for building our campaigns throughout the year.
BUILDING THE MOVEMENT
The relationships we develop during SJLA are long-lasting: together we build a culture and community of openness and acceptance, trust and mutual support. Every week we also connect with inspiring organizers, activists and artists in our city and beyond. We travel to meet other youth groups in the Hudson Valley, Albany, and New York City, sharing our songs and art, learning about other youth organizing efforts and media projects, and building relationships for future collaborations. SJLA is a family. Our partners include the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, Wildseed, Hudson Muslim Youth, Youth FX, Found Sound Nation, Wild Gather, Soul Fire Farm, Brotherhood Sister Sol, and more…
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS PROGRAM
Every summer, we provide meaningful employment and job training to youth leaders (ages 14-19) to help facilitate and run this program, and to serve as mentors to their younger peers (ages 12-16). By employing teen staff, we make participation in the program possible for youth from low-income families. Learn more about tiers of sponsorship and make a commitment below.
LEARN MORE ABOUT SJLA
Want to look through the magic we’ve created with SJLA over the past 10 years? Visit our SJLA archives, where you can find photos, reflections, videos, songs, and more. This archive is an important artifact of the work and impact our young people and staff build and put forth in our community. We hope you find meaning and inspiration as you walk through our past programs and experience the joy and power that happens when we come together in community.
Kite’s Nest programs are made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.