In 1993, the San Francisco organization that would become the Young Women’s Freedom Center made history by becoming one of the first nonprofits in the country run and led entirely by young women. Its mission was to create a support system and community to assist women and girls who had been living on the street and had experienced incarceration, foster care, poverty and trauma.

In the decades since, it has developed a model for training and developing peer leaders with lived experience in the juvenile justice and foster care systems, creating a place of healing for young women and a force for community organizing and empowerment. The Center has helped lead the fight to end juvenile incarceration in California and has developed a set of powerful young leaders — including Rep. Lateefah Simon, the U.S. congresswoman who now represents Oakland and Berkeley and is a former executive director of the Center.

At this Commonwealth Club live event, MindSite News founding editor Rob Waters and author and contributing writer Nell Bernstein spoke with Simon – who served for 11 years as the Center’s executive director – and two current leaders, Julia Arroyo and Emani Davis. They explored the ways that the Center is helping to build a healing community and developing the potential and power of young women as community leaders and change-makers, and took questions from a lively audience.

Listen to the Podcast

About the Speakers

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-Oakland) represents California’s 12th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has deep roots as a Bay Area leader and activist, with over three decades of experience in organizing, advocacy, and philanthropy. In one of her earliest positions, she served as executive director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center for 11 years, starting at the age of 19.

Emani Davis is vice president of strategy & operations, NorCal, of the Young Women’s Freedom Center. A nationally recognized movement strategist with more than two decades of experience, she began publicly advocating as the teenaged daughter of an incarcerated father in the 1990s, helping elevate awareness of the impact of mass incarceration on children and families.

Julia Arroyo is executive director of Young Women’s Freedom Center and a movement leader with more than two decades of experience in reproductive justice, community health and rape crisis intervention. She has lived experience in foster care, the underground street economy, and incarceration and is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation and helping shape a future rooted in healing, dignity, and collective power.

Rob Waters is an award-winning health and mental health journalist and the founding editor of MindSite News. His articles have also appeared in The Washington Post, Kaiser Health News, STAT, Atlantic.com, Mother Jones and many other outlets. He was a 2005 fellow with the Carter Center for Mental Health Journalism.

Nell Bernstein is the author of In Our Future We Are Free: The Dismantling of the Youth Prison, published in November, and two other books. She is a contributing writer for MindSite News, where she wrote about the work of Young Women’s Freedom Center and was honored as a White House Champion of Change in 2013 for her dedication to the well-being of the children of incarcerated parents.

COMMONWEALTH CLUB ORGANIZERS: Veronica Ortega & Patrik O’Reilly