The Youth Empowerment Initiative was founded by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in 2000. It was – and still is – one of the few nationally sustained peace programs involving high school and college students in the United States.

During its first five years in existence, thousands of students and young people participated in the Youth Empowerment Initiative’s activities – the Swackhammer peace essay contest, the Barbara Mandigo Peace Poetry Contest, the Internship and Volunteer programs, and over a dozen Peace Leadership trainings. Many of these students and young people have gone on to become leaders on their campuses, in their communities and in organizations around the world.

In 2002, the NAPF founded a new program of the Youth Empowerment Initiative: the UC Nuclear Free campaign, which aims at severing the University of California’s intimate ties to the national nuclear weapons complex as a way to engage UC students in the larger project of global nuclear disarmament. In 2004, we launched the UC Nuclear Free Web site, which has recently become one of the most popular sites on the Web for information related to student activism and nuclear disarmament. The UC Nuclear Free program as a whole has now reached thousands of students, staff members, and faculty members of the largest public research university system in the world (the UC), and it has only grown in strength and momentum in recent years.

In 2005, the Youth Empowerment Initiative arrived at two new and innovative frontiers: the publication of the enormously popular Demilitarization Guide and the first-ever Think Outside the Bomb conference. The conference, in particular, marked a new level of scope, organization, and coordination for the Initiative’s efforts. Roughly 50 young leaders from across the country attended the week-long conference, which resulted in the formation of the national Think Outside the Bomb network of students and youth across the country working for nuclear disarmament.

In early-2006, the Youth Empowerment Initiative became the Youth Empowerment Initiative. The name change reflects a new stage of growth and evolution for our work, embodied by the launch of our Peace Leadership Clubs and Nuclear-Free Universities campaigns. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s relationship to the youth with whom it works is changing. We no longer seek to outreach to youth per se; rather, we seek to empower them with the tools to work effectively for nuclear disarmament throughout the course of their lives and careers.