Westchester Youth Alliance

Westchester Youth Alliance uses service, arts, civic engagement, and leadership opportunities to provide teens with the tools and confidence to build bridges across differences and create a positive impact in their communities.

Our vision is to shape generations of connected, compassionate changemakers who have the community, skills, and purpose to thrive and create a better future.

The Westchester Youth Alliance grew out of a dream that our communities would be stronger and our world safer if we broke that silence and worked to build a better understanding between people of different faith traditions. And that the place to start was with our youth. We believed that if we could pull together a group of high school students from different backgrounds and give them an opportunity to learn with and from each other and to work side by side on community service projects we could model an understanding of community that would act as a counter balance to the fear and ignorance and misinformation which often divide us from each other. ‍

‍After more than a year of dreaming and planning, we received a grant. The Westchester Youth Alliance was launched in September 2012.

Today, Westchester Youth Alliance has grown into a countywide organization serving more than 500 teens each year through leadership development, civic engagement, the arts, service, and dialogue. Our programs bring together young people from all 40 Westchester County school districts and diverse faiths, cultures, races, identities, and life experiences to build meaningful relationships across differences. At a time when many teens are experiencing isolation, anxiety, and division, WYA creates spaces where they find belonging, develop confidence, discover their voice, and gain the skills to become compassionate leaders and changemakers in their schools, neighborhoods, and beyond.