Support Young Social Entrepreneurs

What’s our story?
My Homie's Couch is a social entrepreneurship venture created by a team of youth and adults from Success Center San Francisco. Success Center SF has provided education and employment opportunities to the city’s most marginalized youth, particularly those engaged in the justice system, for over 32 years. 

Since August of 2015, over 15 youth have come together to answer the question: “What do youth in San Francisco need to succeed?” This question has led to weekly meetings, site visits, a business retreat, and endless ideas on how youth can influence their communities. My Homie's Couch embodies a tactical way in which our team believes we can revolutionize the roles of youth.

What is My Homie's Couch?
My Homie's Couch:
- Embraces youth as legitimate authorities on the issues that affect them.
- Gives youth opportunities to speak on behalf of themselves and others.
- Allows youth to spark the creation of new, transformative communities.

My Homie's Couch consists of 3 components:
1) Film - Youth use their cell phones to create video messages (< 30 seconds long) that answer the following prompts:
-       Tell us about a time when you didn’t have a voice. (Share an issue)
-       What do you wish would have happened? (Describe a solution)
-       What could be done to help others in this situation? (Make a call to action)

2) Share - Youth upload their videos to the My Homie's Couch online platform, which allows anyone in the world to join, browse, and listen.

3) Interact - Our online platform will allow for three levels of interaction.
-       Show support by liking and sharing videos
-       Initiate and contribute to discussions regarding or inspired by the issue at hand
-       Form online and in-person connections to announce, organize, and mobilize issue-based campaigns. In other words, allow users to operate within their own comfort/ability levels to respond to issues.

What might My Homie's Couch look like?
1) Film - Sample film coming soon

Sample message from a youth film: “I don’t have a voice in choosing what I eat because I live in a group home and all of our food decisions are made for us. I wish I could have more choice. You can help by giving this choice to foster kids close to you.”

2) Share - Video is uploaded to the online community. The user assigns a category tag “hunger”. Administrators add the tag “foster care”.

3) Interact - Possible responses from online community:
-       Video receives 50 likes in 1 hour
-       One user starts a new discussion: “What are some other facts about the foster care experience that most people don’t know about.”
-       Another user organizes a food drive for a local group home.
-       A My Homie's Couch team member curates and publishes a collection of foster-care themed videos.
-       A user or My Homie's Couch team member organizes a meet-up entitled “Supporting SF’s foster youth”.

Who are we?

First and foremost, we are a family. We are guided by four adults who collectively have over 150 years of experience supporting youth in fields including education, the juvenile justice system, healthcare, and workforce development. They are Liz Jackson-Simpson (Executive Director of SCSF), Rey LaChaux, (Business Relations Coordinator of SCSF), Genny Price (Director of Development of SCSF), and Michael Fu (Volunteer and Stanford Medical Student).

 Our younger team members come from a variety of backgrounds and range from 17 to 23 years old. They are equally diverse in talent, boasting skills from filmmaking to event planning. Unlike most businesses that serve youth, ours is entirely driven by the ideas, decisions, motivations, and efforts of our youngest members. Many work multiple jobs and care for their own families on top of dedicating time to My Homie's Couch. Their dedication to improving the lives of other youth comes from personal experience with the types of issues that we hope to address through My Homie's Couch; issues such as the foster care system, juvenile hall, homelessness, community violence, and substance abuse, among others. Our current youth innovators are: Amadeus Bruno, Ares Brown, Brian Jackson-Ingram, Charles Breed, Geoffrey Simpson, Mastin Hunter, Mirian Caballero, Taesha Walker. 

How can you help?
1)   Donate – My Homie's Couch currently has no funding source. Since August, it has run entirely on the will, time, and determination of its team members. Your donation would allow us to pay our youth, proceed with a series of crucial product experiments, perfect a marketing strategy, and hire experts to work with our youth in developing our product.

2)   Share – My Homie's Couch is one way in which Success Center hopes to revolutionize the roles of youth in our world. Sharing our project with your friends and in your social media world would help us inspire our belief that every young person can immediately impact the world around them.

3)   Reach Out – We sincerely believe in a spirit of collaboration and community. Please do not hesitate to contact us whether you wish offer advice, make a connection, or simply to offer support.

Feel free to contact Michael Fu (Project Leader and campaign organizer)

Want to learn more about My Homie's Couch or Success Center SF?

-       My Homie's Couch Website

-       Success Center San Francisco Website