BORN TO BE

HEARD

The Deutsche Bank youth
engagement program

Activating advocacy

An inspiring group of young people are learning to use data and research to rally support for policies, budgets and programs responsive to the needs of their schools and their communities.

Since 1944, Citizens’ Committee for Children (CCC) of New York has convened, informed and mobilized New Yorkers to make the city a better place for children. CCC’s approach to child advocacy is fact-based and combines the most effective features of public policy research with a tradition of citizen activism to further its mission of ensuring that every child is healthy, housed, educated and safe.

Deutsche Bank is proud to support CCC’s civic leadership program for high schoolers, YouthAction NYC, which challenges teens to come up with public policy solutions to the issues that directly affect them in their schools and in their communities. Graduates of this program go on to secure prestigious internships with their elected officials, study public policy in college and continue their civic engagement across various issues and outlets.

How it works

Over a ten-week course, students conduct their own research, do public polling, visit community-based organizations and interview their peers and community leaders. They learn to develop their own solutions to the challenges they identify, and present their recommendations to City and State officials. These students’ efforts are helping to address substantive issues facing youth in NYC, including racial, gender and other disparities, as well as improving the City’s juvenile justice and Runaway and Homeless Youth systems.