BCCJ Leadership Initiative (formerly known as AnyTown) develops youth leaders who will work to advance social justice in their schools and communities. BCCJ’s flagship youth program, the long-running BCCJ Leadership Initiative summer program is clearly a week to remember. Generations of New England youth have had the powerful experience of our week-long, social justice leadership retreat.

Youth who come to this program live and engage in dialogue with youth from a wide variety of diverse backgrounds. Through experiential exercises, small group discussion, and community building with a diverse group of Greater Boston youth, we strengthen our understanding of prejudice, our leadership skills, and our commitment to acting for social justice.

1. Understanding: We explore systems of oppression that operate in our lives, and ways those systems become internalized, affect others, grant privileges, and shape society

2. Skills: We will practice and improve leadership skills in self-awareness, personal expression, listening and dialogue, and critical thinking

3. Commitment: We will increase our confidence in our efficacy and potential impact; our awareness of our social roles, networks, and relationships; our ideas for leadership we can provide to advance some aspect of social justice; and our resources and support for taking action on those ideas

BCCJ Leadership Initiative is a week that is intense, exhilarating, and inspiring. Over the years, youth consistently report it is a week that “changed my life.”

BCCJ has changed its approach to enrolling students in the Leadership Initiative. Instead of enrolling individual students, we are now partnering with schools and youth programs to train a delegation of their student leaders, and then support them in the fall. The cost of the program is $1,200 per student for the week.