Ballou High School is located "East of the River," in Ward 8, SE Washington, DC. The Ballou Story Project series provides a platform for these students to tell their own stories on their own terms and act as leaders in their community. Learn more.

The teen tutors of Reach Incorporated noticed that few children's books reflected their reality. They decided to do something about that: they wrote their own. Now these teens have written eight original books, and are diversifying children's literature, one smart-fun-real-brave-bold story at a time. Learn more.

Beacon House is an after-school education and youth development organization serving children and families in the greater Edgewood neighborhood of Northeast Washington, DC. Beacon House’s mission is to provide children in and around Edgewood with a safe, nurturing, life expanding community in which to increase their academic achievement, discover their talents, and grow into healthy adults who achieve their greatest potential. Its programs focus on closing the education achievement gap - and thus improving the economic trajectories - of children in Ward 5 for whom generational poverty is most persistent. Learn more.

Free Minds uses books, creative writing, and peer support to awaken DC youth incarcerated as adults to their own potential.  Through creative expression, job readiness training, and violence prevention outreach, these young poets achieve their education and career goals, and become powerful voices for change in the community. Learn more. 

The young women of Restavek Freedom Foundation are writing books with a mission: to end child slavery in Haiti. They have created two beautiful and powerful children's books raising awareness of this issue, inspired by their own pain and determination to overcome. Learn more.

During the summer of 2017, Shout Mouse Press held a month-long workshop with LAYC's Latino Youth Leadership Council (LYLC), a passionate group of young people dedicated to social justice in their community. The workshop, led by a team of teaching artists with experience devising and illustrating comic books, resulted in a graphic memoir collection by Latinx youth that inspires, motivates, and educates its readers, and that changes the narrative about America's immigrants. Learn More