To increase growth opportunities and impact, Public Affairs staff made sure to connect chapter members with key community partners, leaders, and elected officials. They provided opportunities to make meaningful connections and become part of critical conversations.
Chapter members are consistently building their own capacity by engaging in these partnerships, and providing vital feedback and recommendations they would like to see on their campus and in their community.
Here are just a few examples of the impact our student leaders had in the last academic year.
The Generation Action club at the University of Nevada, Reno won this year’s Outstanding Social and Political Involvement Club Award from the Department of Clubs and Organizations at UNR!
Our UC Davis chapter, led by Students for Reproductive Freedom, is growing their leadership team and campus collaborations to ensure their activism has the greatest impact. Their strength? UCD SRF noticed a lot of students, including those studying pre-law, were passionate about social issues, but didn’t know how to take action. The chapter created a foundation of opportunities for students to engage and hosted education forums on campus policymaking in order to leverage their power to enact change on campus. The chapter increased their cross-movement collaborations with organizations like URGE, Cops off Campus, the Gender and Sexuality Commission, Disabled Student Union and the Associated Student Union, and amplified their online presence engage followers in phonebanking and canvassing.
“I feel like we did a lot of great things this year. One of the top events for me was the Rally for Roe. I feel like it was organized at a time when a lot of people were looking at us for direction and ways to show support and get involved. From a very practical an everyday impact perspective, I think both of our mutual aid distributions were super impactful.” – Caydee
Our Central Valley chapters at UC Merced, Fresno City College and College of the Sequoias are key components to ensuring that underrepresented communities have a stake in upholding reproductive care on their college campuses by providing necessary information and resources to their peers.
The Gen Action Chapter of Fresno City College is a great example of impact through partnership with the college campus food pantry. Our Gen Action chapter identified that the food pantry, a free service which predominantly serves BIPOC and low-Income students, did not have personal care items like toothbrushes, tampons, condoms, hair products, or other daily personal hygiene needs. The chapter now provides hygiene kits at weekly distributions. The Fresno chapter also became the co-sponsor of Fresno Pride in 2022. Fresno Pride had a total attendance of over 12,000 people, the largest Pride event in Fresno's history. Chapter members are also working with community leaders, faculty and students to improve sexual harassment reporting policies and accountability practices.
The UC Merced chapter focuses on bringing sex education and resources to campus by hosting bi-weekly meetings and activities with a focus on uplifting LGBTQ+ students. With fellow students, faculty, and the campus student health clinic, their coalition is working to ensure the LGBTQ+ community is respected throughout campus and provided reproductive health care services and inclusive sex education resources.
New chapter alert!
In early 2021, PPMM engaged local Visalia residents in fighting for an expanded health center. Although the search for a new health center location continues, students at College of the Sequoias took notice. Students and faculty are committed to launching a new PP Generation Action chapter in the fall of 2022 with a focus on expanding health care access to all Tulare County residents.
Even before their launch, students from this chapter led a day of action in response to the leaked draft opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court. Students rallied in front of the Tulare County District Courthouse followed by a community march to Visalia City Hall. We’re excited to see how these COS students will impact their campus and local community.
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