Youth Food Justice Zine: Accepting Submissions!
By Calondra McArthur

Know amazing youth doing food justice work? Then you’ll love this!

WhyHunger is excited to introduce the Youth Food Justice Zine as a dynamic, new addition to our Food Justice Voices series. For those unfamiliar, a zine is noncommercial publication devoted to special topics with forms of organic self-expression. Zines are typically found outside mainstream media and feature voices that are often filtered out by traditional outlets. The Youth Food Justice Zine is now accepting content submissions and is seeking to connect with youth who are working on food justice issues. The zine’s goals are to lift up the voices of youth food justice activists, provide a platform to address the exploitation occurring in food systems around the world, honor youth who are impacted by food issues because they are best positioned to create solutions for addressing those same issues, and empower youth to embrace their leadership.

Organizers believe that youth power is critical for real change and intergenerational movement building. “Food Justice is about self-determination. It is about communities having the power and being empowered to build a food system that nourishes our connection to each other and to the planet. To accomplish that our work and our movements have to be intergenerational, building on the knowledge of our elders and ancestors while honoring and supporting the leadership and voices of our youth,” explained Beatriz Beckford, zine organizer and co-director of WhyHunger’s Grassroots Action Network. “That is what this zine is about, it’s a beautifully creative tool for amplifying youth voice and lifting up the many perspectives and stories of youth leadership that too often go unnoticed.”

Submission can be any creative expression from writings, drawings, lyrics and slam poetry to photos, collages, rhymes, reflections and more. Topics for submission include: Food Justice, Hunger, Health and Nutrition, Food Sovereignty, Food Systems, Environmental Justice, Food as Medicine, Food Culture, Affordable Healthy Food, Restaurant Worker Rights, Justice for Food Workers, Living Wages, GMOs and more.

“I feel it is important for youth to have a way to express themselves through creative outlets as it can help them get their thoughts and ideas out more clearly. For me that helps a lot and I wanted to be a part of helping make something creative for the youth to be able explain Food Justice in their own way,” said Ayisah Yusuf, zine organizer and youth food justice activist.

WhyHunger’s Food Justice Voices series was created to support and amplify the voices of people working to regain control of their communities' food system. Telling their own stories, these individual leaders and communities are on the front lines shaping the movement to alleviate food insecurity and build food justice across America. As zine organizer and youth food justice activist Victoria Pozos Bernal shares “I'm participating on this project because I've become active in many justice issues and this project incorporates many of them, especially farmworker justice. My vision is to get youth knowledgeable about farmworker and food justice. Because everybody eats then everybody has to know the system.”

The goal is to have as many youth voices as possible included in this publication, so please encourage those you know to send in their work. Detailed guidelines can be found here and the submission deadline is April 1, 2015 by 5pm EST.

For more information, questions and additional resources please visit the Youth Food Justice Zine website and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.