YWFC
For more than 30 years, Young Women’s Freedom Center has provided support, mentorship, training, employment, and advocacy to young women and trans youth of all genders in California who have grown up in poverty, experienced the juvenile legal and foster care systems, have had to survive living and working on the streets, and who have experienced significant violence in their lives.
The Mission of the Young Women’s Freedom Center (dba Freedom Center) is to provide fiscal sponsorship, operational support, coaching, and training to projects that center systems-impacted women, girls, and trans people of all genders with the primary purpose to inspire and empower young women who have been involved in the juvenile justice system, criminal justice system, and/or the underground street economy to create a positive change in their lives and communities.
We meet young people where they’re at: on the streets, in jails and detention centers, and in the neighborhoods and communities where we live.
Together, we build our personal and collective power, heal from trauma, advocate on behalf of ourselves and each other, and gain access to education and work to transform the conditions, systems, and policies that lead to intergenerational cycles of violence, incarceration, and poverty.
A world in which all young women and trans youth of all genders have the support they need to recognize and end all forms of oppression, to heal, and to live self-determined lives.
Sister Warriors
We are a member-led organization of over 5,000 formerly and currently incarcerated and systems-impacted women and trans people of all genders, founded in 2017 at a convening of over 200 systems-impacted people in Oakland. We improve conditions for women and trans people of all genders by fighting for – and winning – policies and systems change that center the needs and experiences of communities most impacted by systems of exploitation, criminalization, and incarceration throughout the state.
We are impacted by incarceration, foster care, the child welfare system, immigration, social services, and other institutions and systems that control and criminalize us. We have survived violence, trauma, and underground street economies. We seek to have our voices heard and validated. We want to sit at any table where decisions are being made that affect us. We strive for concrete change in the material conditions of our lives and our communities.
Beloved Village
Beloved Village (“Beloved”) was founded in 2020 by Young Women’s Freedom Center to create community-based housing solutions for women, girls, and trans people of all genders who have experienced violence, incarceration, poverty, and life on the streets. We provide dignified housing solutions that don’t further criminalize families but rather support their self-determination in the pursuit of the vision laid out in the Sister Warriors Freedom Charter.
To achieve this bold vision, Beloved collaborates with communities throughout California to develop creative groundbreaking housing and resource solutions that empower residents to determine their destinies, maintain the unity of families and communities, and enhance re-entry programs, alternatives to imprisonment, and group care. Our efforts aim to promote economic mobility and create a future that is free from systems involvement.