InnerCity Struggle

Mission:

InnerCity Struggle promotes safe, healthy and non-violent communities by organizing youth and families to build power and influence in Boyle Heights, El Sereno, unincorporated East Los Angeles and Lincoln Heights to work towards economic, social and educational justice.

Vision:

InnerCity Struggle (ICS) is working to build a movement for educational justice in East Los Angeles by organizing and developing the leadership skills of high school students and parents to build community power for economic and educational equity. ICS youth and parents leaders are actively leading efforts to involve their peers and neighbors in devising new school policies that will increase college access and graduation rates for youth in East Los Angeles, replace punitive disciplinary policies with pro-active and supportive policies, and promote real parent engagement and decision-making in East Los Angeles schools.

ICS's educational justice organizing work aims to redistribute resources in the Los Angeles Unified School District and to ensure that all students in East L.A. are provided equal access to a quality education that prepares them for higher education. We believe that in order to address educational inequities, we must challenge the disproportionate lack of resources within our schools. We train our membership and staff through political education and study groups to make connections between how the lack of educational quality contributes to less or poor economic opportunities for our community.

ICS's civic engagement work is focused on building community power through voter education and outreach efforts.