By Alysia Lee
As a community dependent on the next generation, we cannot let young people’s future in Baltimore be determined by their zip code, resources or network. That’s not how you create a thriving city, let alone a thriving society. Every young person deserves a solid support structure, a safe environment to grow, and the opportunity to excel, regardless of circumstance.
While recent data from the city shows remarkable progress in 2025, such as youth homicides down 83 percent, the reality remains that a young person’s future in our city is still largely determined by where they’re from, down to the street. Our young people are brilliant and full of promise, yet they navigate fragmented systems, inequitable access to resources, and limited power to shape the decisions affecting their lives.
Baltimore needs a comprehensive, youth-driven plan that transforms fragmented services into a coordinated movement for change, and one that is tailored to our own unique identity.
There’s a frustration among the upcoming generation who have ideas, energy and the capacity for true leadership but are met with limited opportunity to shape the entrenched systems affecting their lives. Shuttered recreation centers, aging school buildings, and neighborhoods lacking safe spaces for kids to grow up only deepen those realities.
Thankfully, even as they face funding gaps and minimal inclusion in policy decisions, grassroots organizations across Baltimore have never stopped showing up for our youth. In 2024, summer programs served over 10,000 youth, showing how direct support improves stability and educational outcomes.
But scattered efforts aren’t enough. While well-intentioned, these programs often operate in silos, without coordinated data sharing, aligned strategies, and perhaps most importantly, meaningful youth input in their design. If we want our youth to flourish, their abilities must be recognized and their ideas for change embraced and taken seriously.
Our city has experienced decades of systemic racism, redlining and disinvestment that have shaped young people’s lives and robbed them of opportunities they deserve. These aren’t abstract historical footnotes; they’re present-day realities that determine which schools have updated facilities, which neighborhoods have safe parks, and which young people have access to mentorship and opportunity.
Baltimore needs a comprehensive, community-driven roadmap for youth development. Enter: The Baltimore Youth Master Plan. This plan is Baltimore’s first youth-led framework for aligning the city’s various youth services around shared goals and ensuring young people have the power to shape their own futures. Critically, it places young people at the center as co-chairs, facilitators and decision-makers throughout the entire process. In the coming weeks, BCYF will bring together youth leaders, national partners, and local stakeholders for a convening in Baltimore to shape and activate the plan, turning vision into action.
The Youth Master Plan rests on five core promises to Baltimore’s young people: center youth leadership so young people set priorities and solutions; unite the city around shared goals across families, nonprofits, funders, and government; strengthen accountability through clear roles, milestones, and public reporting; build community capacity with tools and training that empower youth and grassroots partners; and guide investment and policy so that city systems and funding reflect the priorities of Baltimore’s communities—not outside assumptions.
This approach has worked elsewhere. Cities like New Orleans have demonstrated that comprehensive youth master plans can align resources and create meaningful change when young people lead the way, and our city has had the distinct opportunity of learning directly from New Orleans about their work. But ours will be distinctly Baltimore’s, shaped by our young people’s wisdom and our community’s strengths and challenges.
Baltimore’s young people have already proven they’re ready to lead. They’ve survived a pandemic, contributed to historic reductions in violence, and continued to show up for their communities despite systemic barriers. They’re already organizing, advocating and creating change.
When a young person’s access to opportunity depends on which neighborhood they live in or which adults they happen to know, we’ve failed to create the conditions for all young people to succeed. Grassroots organizations, funders, government agencies, and residents must show up for them by building the coordinated systems and structures that make thriving possible for every young person.
The Youth Master Plan represents a collective promise: that every young person in Baltimore will have the support, resources, and power to thrive. Not because of where they live or who they know, but because we’ve built the systems that make it possible.
Our young people are already at the party. It’s time we finally ask them to dance and let them lead.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.