What is YAC, anyway?

New to the Youth Action Coalition? Here's where you can learn a little more about who we are and what we do.

What is YAC?
Youth Action Coalition (YAC) is a community-based non-profit organization promoting youth empowerment through creative expression and social action projects. We pair intensive arts immersion with social justice education, working with youth to foster their natural talents as artists and build on their strengths as community leaders and agents of change. YAC is based in Amherst, Massachusetts.

What does YAC do?
YAC runs four afterschool programs geared for middle and high school-aged youth in Amherst, Ware and the surrounding towns.

GirlsEyeView (GEV) offers a supportive and creative space for young women to express themselves through photography and creative writing. GEV has two locations - Amherst and Ware.

In Amherst, GEV is for middle school girls. At GEV Amherst we work with black and white manual photography, shooting pictures and then developing them ourselves in the darkroom.

In Ware, GEV is for both middle and high school girls. Here we work with digital photography, processing and improving our photos using Adobe Photoshop.

Both GEV programs also do creative writing - this year we are working with a couple of UMass MFA students. Stay tuned for a blog post introducing them!

Video Vanguards (VV) works with youth of color and their allies as they empower themselves while exploring the issues that they deal with everyday and express themselves through making media.

VV participants learn to produce video using FinalCut, a professional quality editing software. You can check out some VV videos on YouTube!

Get Up Get Down (GUGD) focuses on creating art through activism and activism through public art.

We explore a variety of art forms — from murals to metal working, sidewalk art to gallery work — investigating issues that are relevant to youth and our communities. We expand our skills as community organizers through trainings and hands-on work in the community, and build our leadership by organizing and facilitating talk-backs about our work. Speak your mind through public art!


Check out YAC's website where you can find more information, and a link to donate to help support our work.