Youth Democracy Works
Young people are Pittsburgh's most important civic resource. They live with the consequences of local decisions long after they're made — yet the systems that shape those decisions were never built with them in mind. Youth Democracy Works changes that, by giving the next generation a permanent seat in the civic life of their city.
Youth Democracy Works is the delivery platform for Civic Stage, embedding civic participation directly into the schools, libraries, and governance systems young Pittsburghers already use. Through hands-on cohorts, students don't just learn how local government works — they help shape what it decides. They run community polls, bring resident voices into the formal public record, and build the civic tools their neighbors rely on. The work itself is the education: by building civic infrastructure, students learn to use it.
We meet young people where they already are, and we treat them as system-builders, not bystanders. In partnership with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and a growing network of schools, Youth Democracy Works is becoming permanent civic infrastructure — running in lasting relationship with the institutions that govern our city.
Elections choose who decides. Youth Democracy Works helps shape what they decide.
Youth Democracy Works fellows 2019