Antonio De Jesus | Florida YAYA Organizer
YAYA-NFWM is a great organization with great people with different life experiences and backgrounds who come together to fight for farm worker justice.
Coming from a farm worker family, YAYA-NFWM has given me tools and a way to fight the injustice my family and other farm worker families have faced. YAYA-NFWM has given me the opportunity to not only work in solidarity with farm workers, but also helped me better understand the oppression farm workers face in the fields where they work and the communities where they live.
We have built relationships with not only the farm workers themselves but also with their families, and others living in their communities, including farm worker organizations. The struggle that began with Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, and the supporters of the early farm worker struggle continues to this day here in Florida.
Whether it’s meeting with farm workers in the fields, holding workshops, talking about farm worker awareness in our schools and communities, or fighting alongside farm workers in our streets and in front of corporate offices, YAYA-NFWM works hard to not allow for those injustices to go unheard. Come and join us as we continue to work in solidarity with farm workers in their communities and organizations!
Ana Laura Bolaños
Alianza de Mujeres Activas Inc./ Alliance of Active Women
“YAYA is an organization that, through its youth, injects hope into the different agencies that they support. For AMA this means learning, overcoming, and communication. YAYA is a bridge between farm worker communities and young people: they learn from us and we learn from them. It’s a bridge of help and hope. It inspires me to see these youth who take an interest in the issues of farm workers. I am proud to see that it doesn’t matter where they come from or where we come from, we can work together with respect and seriousness. Thank you, YAYA, for allowing AMA to work with you.”
Baldemar Velasquez
Founder, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)
“In all my 44 years of organizing farm workers, I’ve never seen a more delightful, dedicated, on-going organized group of young people in standing, marching, picketing in all our critical events for justice. They inspire and mobilize the youth and vindicate the old in the call for righteous treatment of the men and women who toil our fields.”
Jeannie Economos
The Farmworker Association of Florida
“I have watched YAYA grow and develop over the past 4-5 years. Thanks to the tremendous organizational skills and dedicated hard work of Lariza, coupled with the passion, enthusiasm and commitment of students and youth around the state, YAYA has not only created programs and projects that have directly helped farmworkers, but has also helped raise awareness on campuses and in communities. From bicycle give-aways providing a means of transportation to undocumented farmworkers, to helping to lead the charge in stopping anti-immigrant bills from passing in the state legislature, YAYA has mobilized young people in ‘la lucha’ for justice.
The Farmworker Association of Florida is grateful for the many ways in which YAYA has supported the work of our organization and our farmworker communities in all our five areas of the state, including conducting workshops on Secure Communities, organizing groups for Lake Apopka Toxic Tours, coordinating alternative spring break activities to bring farmworkers and youth together, and advocating for AgJOBS on a national level. Farmworkers in Florida and around the country have a trusted ally in YAYA. Thanks, YAYA! You are doing exciting and important work….and, you ARE making a difference!”
Nataly Azcurra
NFWM Fall Intern 2011
Being a part of YAYA this past semester has been such an experience. Working with the people at NFWM has helped me see what an effect what we do has on families who face a broken justice system. I am a second-year Anthropology student and interning with this organization has helped decide where I would want to take my studies later on, maybe to work with other underrepresented groups of people in Latin America who are at the mercy of a system that does not favor them.
While in NFWM-YAYA I have participated in YAYA meetings and Immigration Coalition meetings as well as working on the NFWM website. Farm workers are the backbone of this country in their essence and witnessing the honest work that goes on here can only inspire me to move forward and continue to be a part of something that truly does make a difference for everyone involved.
Mission