The Fund: Grants Advisory Board for Youth
The Grants Advisory Board for Youth (GABY) supports area youth by developing their knowledge of philanthropy and community-building skills through service-learning. The program sparks young people’s interest in giving and taking action on issues that are important to them. GABY encourages local youth to collaborate with us and each other to help make our community a better place.
Each year, GABY grants thousands of dollars to youth-led projects at nonprofits and schools throughout the Sacramento region that represent a diverse array of community needs — from producing care packages for LGBTQI+ homeless youth to bringing environmental education to children who have limited opportunities to explore wild places.
This year, GABY made grants to five youth-led programs in the capital region. Among those organizations is Fitrah — a book reselling online business that is run and operated by youth.
Fitrah
The Organization: Fitrah
“Fitrah is a social enterprise. We are actually run as a complete business,” said Nadia Niazi, the Founder and Executive Director of Fitrah. “It was created for youth to take over completely. They do everything from collecting private donations from businesses and the community to processing them onto the several platforms that we use.”
At Fitrah, youth in the age range of 16-25 years old are in charge of the entire business — from inventory management to shipping and beyond, Fitrah participants learn about business and cultivate their own work ethic through these lessons.
“The work portion of the business is mainly about building confidence,” Nadia said. “The program is a two-part model. The first part is that they work a paid job; they come in for 20 hours a week and receive a stipend. As they’ve been working with us for a couple of weeks, we move onto the second part of the program, which is working on themselves.”
Many participants of Fitrah are youth who are vulnerable or at-risk; Fitrah works with young people who have been a part of the foster care system, court-involved, or out of school for some time.
“That’s when we come in and start mentoring them. We have conversations about what they would like to do with their life: ‘What are your goals? Do you need help obtaining a high school diploma, because that’s the most important goal?’ And then once we’re able to establish those goals, we make sure they follow through.” Fitrah stays connected with youth who have come through the program for up to two years.
“Youth who have been with us who are more tenured, sometimes even for only a few weeks, begin training the newer participants,” Nadia continued. “This can be very empowering because these are kids who might have never been told that they could be a leader, that they are an asset to a business. That they’re valuable and that they can accomplish things. As they graduate from the program, they can come back and be leaders, or speak for us about our program. They can come back and do an internship where they’re given bigger projects. It’s really a place where youth can reach their full potential and have the means to do that.”
The Cause: Fitrah’s Mentoring Program
Fitrah used its GABY grant to strengthen its mentoring program, which is led virtually through Zoom. “Mentoring is geared toward each individual, but we also have a lot of different workshops,” Nadia said. “The youth create videos where they’re given a topic from the Mindset series.” Some of the topics that youth cover through the Mindset series include how to be self-motivated, how to stay focused, and how to accomplish daily and long-term goals. “They’ll have 10 weeks’ worth of material. Every week there will either be a new participant leading the group or they’ll play one of the videos and have a discussion based on how it applies to their lives.”
“[The mentoring program] is very powerful because, for one, it’s a youth-led group which is already very empowering. And two: youth tend to listen to their own, so it makes it more appealing for youth to attend a virtual meeting.” The grant from GABY has helped Fitrah in allowing them to offer an extra incentive. “The one incentive is that it’s a youth-led Zoom call, but at the same time, having a stipend or a gift card really helps for them to show up.”
When asked what was most inspiring about working with youth in the Sacramento region, Nadia had this to say: “What’s inspiring is their potential. When you give them the means to have opportunities, the sky’s the limit. We’ve given them the ability to do things on our website, to have them attend their first job fair where they did a presentation. It’s really about giving them the tools and then just watching them grow, instead of always being worried that they’re not going to be able to perform.”
“Giving them the tools is really giving them the ability to perform because they will really shock you,” Nadia continued. “When it came to the videos, at one point I wondered if I was giving them too much to do. But they said, ‘We’re actually learning! We feel empowered that kids are going to be watching this and learn.’ It’s really about just seeing what their potential is.”