The Young People's Project (YPP) is a direct result of the Algebra Project. It was founded in Jackson, Mississippi in 1996 by two Algebra Project graduates and nine eighth grade Algebra Project Students with the goal of keeping the Algebra Project growing and the spirit of the civil rights movement alive. In the course of three years, the Young People's Project has expanded to include sites in Cambridge, MA and Atlanta, GA.

"YPP was founded on the belief that literacy, specifically mathematical literacy, is the organizational tool, comparable to the right to vote, for disenfranchised Blacks to determine their existence in today's society."

The slogan on the YPP is "Each One, Teach One." Find out more about how to get started volunteering in your community.

			Gina Wilkerson is one of the Young Peoples' Project volunteers profiled in the NOW story THE MATHEMATICS OF SUCCESS GINA WILKERSON: Before I went in there, I hated math; To me it was very complicated because you had to use all those big numbers and had to use calculators and all these different formulas and equations ... I don't want to try these; it's too hard. I just wanted to forget about math and just leave it alone, but then I came to the Algebra Project and they started using different methods in learning mathematics. It became interesting and I decided that I would stick with it. It wasn't until I started doing and going out and trying to reach other people with what we were doing, then I understood that [Bob Moses] was trying to get us to make a demand for what we want to do today. We don't have to just accept what's given to us; that we can make a change, and we're trying to bring about a change in the educational system dealing with math. It's more than math; it's a combination of a lot of things — you go out and you interact with the community and then you'll go travel on the tour nationwide and you're presenting different things that we do and — it's also helping your communications skills. It's given me a lot of confidence that you know I can go out here and I can change the world if I wanted to because I don't have to accept what the people or the system is giving me. Read more biographies of Young People's Project Leaders.