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Student Rising Fellowship

Join San Francisco Rising for the 2023 Student Rising Fellowship with other college students throughout the Bay Area. During this fellowship, students will learn community organizing skills, practice in-person canvassing skills, build SF Rising’s student base, and work on campaigns to improve educational access to higher education. Fill out the form below to be taken to the fellowship application!

Student Rising Fellowship

Join San Francisco Rising for the 2023 Student Rising Fellowship with other college students throughout the Bay Area. During this fellowship, students will learn community organizing skills, practice in-person canvassing skills, build SF Rising’s student base, and work on campaigns to improve educational access to higher education. Fill out the form below to be taken to the fellowship application!

Given our national political context, as well as the crises facing our planet and our economy, young people need to be front and center of any movement is forging our path forward for future generations. Students and young people are already taking leadership across the country, and San Francisco Rising is part of this movement. We cultivate the leadership of young people of color, in particular, to organize, shape, and determine California’s future. 

We began organizing with students at San Francisco State University, City College of San Francisco and the University of SF, in the fall of 2017. Together, as SF Students Rising, we are developing a school-to-organizing pathway of students equipped with strategic, culturally-relevant organizing skills who will actively support a political agenda of working-class communities of color. Our organizing alongside students has helped establish the first SF Students Rising chapter at San Francisco State University: Student Liberation Against Exploitation (SLAE).

SF Rising is the leading coalition member of College For All, a statewide campaign to make college free again at the University of California, California State University and community college level, including undocumented and formerly incarcerated students, by taxing the ultra-wealthy. SF Students Rising members are also part of Student Action, a national movement to demand free public higher education and cancel student debt. Learn more about our work on College for All below.

Because San Francisco Rising is a member organization of Power California, SF Students Rising members are part of a statewide network that organizes hundreds of thousands of young people of color and their families from diverse backgrounds as voters: Black, Latinx, API, Native, LGBT, currently and formerly incarcerated, undocumented and citizen. Youth of color make up 70% of the millennial generation in California and 50% have an immigrant or refugee backgrounds. Together, we are building a movement of young people and families of color to win policy victories, elect and hold leaders accountable and meet the aspirations of our communities.

Specifically, we inform, educate and mobilize young people of color and their families to engage in civic decision-making to transform their strength in numbers into real political power at the polls. We run phone banks and personally speak to thousands of young voters of color before every election so that our communities are aware of what’s on the ballot, are ready to vote, and know how to vote. Together with the Power California network, we registered more than 40,000 young voters between 2017 and 2019 and engaged more than 200,000 voters in elections during the same period.

This form is for individuals. If you represent an organization that would like to join San Francisco Rising as an affiliate please contact our director Emily Lee at emily@sanfranciscorising.org, or for questions specifically about SF Students Rising, contact Celi Tamayo-Lee at celi@sanfranciscorising.org

Holding the District Attorney Accountable to Criminal Justice Reform

SF Rising is teaming up with the ACLU of Northern California to co-convene the SF District Attorney Accountability Alliance. We want to make sure that whoever holds the office of district attorney in our city is committed to upholding justice and public safety for all of our communities. The alliance will bring together community, civil rights, legal, labor and other organizations committed to hold whoever becomes the next San Francisco District Attorney accountable. Our priorities will include: 

• Holding police accountable when they break the law
• Maintaining and advancing criminal justice reforms that reduce incarceration and racial bias
• Upholding public safety and law enforcement priorities that focus on rehabilitation and treatment, victims’ services, and long-neglected priorities such as protecting workers’ rights

San Franciscans deserve a DA who will work to eliminate the inequities in our criminal legal system and keep all of us safe.

Cancelling ALL Student Debt and Making College Free for All

While we are excited about President Biden's announcement to cancel $10-20k of student debt per loan borrower,, we know that over centuries, racist institutions and policies have left many BIPOC students without generational wealth and we are forced to take on more debt than our white peers. Cancelling only $10-20k will still disproportionately leave much of our community with debt while clearing white borrowers' debt. We all deserve to access higher education without bearing the heavy burden of student debt. That's why we are fighting for total student debt cancellation and free higher education for everyone.

Gearing up for 2024

2024 is going to be a huge year for electoral change. There will be races at the local, state, and federal level and we want to make sure that our communities are registered and equipped with the knowledge they need to feel prepared to vote next year.