Apex for Youth was selected to launch the Aspen Institute’s Center for Rising Generations’ new series, sharing the youth development model that has nearly tripled its reach in six years.
The first session, “Building Youth Leadership Through Healing-Centered Approaches,” was hosted by Teymour Ashkan and featured Yaya Yuan, Apex for Youth’s Director of Programs, alongside Apex alumni and youth leaders Miki Lin and Sharnali Das, to show how healing, belonging, and sustained support help young people step into leadership.
“This just reinforces why we started with Apex for Youth in this series,” he said, calling the conversation “really setting a high bar for the year” and encouraging attendees to reach out to Apex to partner or join its community.
Watch the full webinar on Youtube →
A national platform for Asian American youth
The Aspen Institute has spent more than 75 years bringing leaders together across disciplines to solve society’s challenges. Its Center for Rising Generations believes that young people closest to a problem often have the best solutions. This series aims to spread the practice of sharing power and designing alongside young people.
Partnering with Aspen gives Asian American youth a national platform in front of youth advocates and youth-serving organizations, at a time when their needs are often overlooked.
The model minority myth keeps those needs invisible:
- 1 in 2 Asian American youth in NYC live in or near poverty.
- Asian Americans are 18% of the city’s population but receive less than 6% of its social service dollars.
- 1 in 4 Asian American youth grow up in a home where no one over 14 speaks English proficiently. Many take on language brokering as early as 8 or 9.
- 1 in 2 Asian high school students report experiencing racism at school, higher than any other racial group.
- Suicide is the leading cause of death for Asian Americans ages 15 to 24. They are the group least likely to seek mental health support.
Apex for Youth’s 35 Year Model
Yaya Yuan presented Apex for Youth’s model, refined over 35 years of work with Asian American youth and families from low-income and immigrant backgrounds.
Today Apex serves more than 2,700 young people, from elementary school through young adulthood, with about 1,000 volunteers and 50 staff. In the past six years, we have nearly tripled the number of youth we reach, from 1,056 to 2,700.
How the Apex model works:
- It starts from lived experience. Our curriculum is built around the intersection of financial hardship, racism, adult responsibility, and bicultural identity.
- Healing is built in. Our healing-centered workshops, developed with the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF) and led by our social worker, focus on racial and intergenerational healing. Some are now designed and facilitated by young people themselves.
- A web of support surrounds each young person. It is made up of people, opportunities, and resources.
- It builds the ABCs: Agency, Belonging, and Confidence.
- 88% of our youth learn more about their interests and college and career pathways
- 97% feel a sense of belonging at Apex
- 99% feel good about themselves at Apex
- It is co-designed with youth. Feedback from young people and mentors shapes the program, then is codified into our curriculum and volunteer training, which is what makes the model replicable.
Apex’s Youth Leaders’First-Hand Experience
The heart of the session came from Miki Lin and Sharnali Das, two former Apex mentees.
Miki Lin, a senior at Mount Holyoke studying psychology and education, joined Apex in elementary school. She spoke about growing from a shy child into a resident advisor who leads in community, and about the staff members who noticed what she needed before she asked. Her message to other youth-serving organizations was that the most important support comes from someone you don’t have to ask.
Sharnali Das, a sophomore studying civil engineering at The City College of New York, first came to Apex at 14 through a healing workshop. She went on to co-design and facilitate workshops herself, and described how Apex reshaped her idea of leadership: from being the loudest voice to being the person who notices and gives back to their community. She also introduced Apex to her younger brother.
Both spoke about why leadership matters for Asian American women and girls, and about the Apex alumni network that keeps mentors and mentees connected well after graduation.
Hear more from Miki and Sharnali →
Lessons for organizations that want to share power with youth
- Ask young people what they need, and build it in. Co-design isn’t a one-time survey. It shapes the program, the curriculum, and the training.
- Make support proactive. Don’t wait for young people to ask. Many Asian American youth from immigrant families are eldest children who translate and help with money, so asking for help can feel like a burden.
- Create safe practice space for leadership. Young people need room to speak up, make mistakes, and lead others.
What’s next: Partner with Apex for Youth
Our recent strategic planning process affirmed that very few organizations in the country do what we do for low-income and immigrant Asian American youth. Our next step is to replicate the model in other communities and with other organizations serving similar youth.
If you run a youth-serving organization, fund youth leadership work, or want to bring healing-centered programming to your community, we want to hear from you.
- Partner with us: email info@apexforyouth.org
- Volunteer: https://apexforyouth.org/volunteer/
- Follow Apex to keep updated with our programming:
Thank you to the Aspen Institute and the Center for Rising Generations for the invitation, and to Miki and Sharnali for sharing their stories with such honesty and heart.
About Apex for Youth
Apex for Youth supports Asian American young people from low-income and immigrant backgrounds in New York City and across the country, from elementary school through young adulthood. Through mentoring, critical resources, and a web of support, we help youth build agency, belonging, and confidence, and move from surviving to thriving.
Learn more at https://apexforyouth.org/about-apex/
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