Life & Work with Edie Young

Today we’d like to introduce you to Edie Young.

Hi Edie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m Edie Young She/Her a Youth Political Queer and Disabled Activist from DC.

I specialize in Issues surrounding Disability Rights, Human Rights, and Gun Violence Prevention. I also specialize in supporting artists.

I am fighting for a world where one day people will stop losing their lives to guns, where people will be able to feel safe in schools and public spaces, and where queer and trans youth will be able to freely express themselves and not have to worry about coming out or simply existing. I also hope for a world where disabled people will one day be able to exist without fearing for their lives.

I am currently President and Founder of my School’s Disability Student Alliance (DSA). I also founded and led We Are Artistic. I do work with Queer Youth Assemble. I love supporting others and advocating for them.

In 2019, I founded an organization called We Are Artistic to support artists, artistic people, and people who appreciate art. I wanted to create a supportive and welcoming community for artists, a place where they could share their creations without being judged, and a place where artists could be themselves and get support for free. It originally started as a small Facebook group where my friends and family could share their art. Then, in 2021, I realized how much more support we could give by expanding to other social media, so we started Instagram and TikTok and started doing collabs where we have artists draw something under the same topic, and started doing artist support posts where we have artists promote themselves in the comments and interact with other artists. We also started making tips and how to post and posts to spread awareness. In 2021, we also started a volunteer program and it allowed other young people to join our organization who are passionate about our mission. It has allowed us to host events and have young people do tasks, so I don’t have to do everything and have some help. After we started offering volunteer opportunities, we have expanded worldwide. We now have volunteers in places like Sri Lanka and India.

What inspired me to start the organization is that I am an artist who does digital art and I see how hard it is to get support and how costly it can be to get support. I understand how it can be to feel that your art isn’t good enough or as good. My love for art started in Elementary School because I really enjoyed drama class with Ms. Maria. She made it fun, and the shows were interesting. She would let us put on our own plays and involve us in the behind-the-scenes of the plays as well. I also started We Are Artistic to provide a safe and welcoming space for young people to show that their art is good because I believe there can be something good about every art creation someone makes because every piece is unique. It allows people to belong to a community. I believe everyone deserves to have a safe and welcoming space they can belong in.

At the start of 9th grade, I learned about the nonprofit Cards For Hospitalized Kids, well searching for community service, and learned how easy it was to uplift others using your art and how easy it is to host a card-making event. My organization started hosting card-making events. At card-making events, We have a table, tent, and card-making supplies, and instruction sheets. People come together to brighten the lives of hospitalized kids. It is really meaningful for me to see people coming together to uplift kids in hospitals because It’s easy and free and allows people to use their creativity and art to give back. Many people don’t realize how easy it is to uplift using art.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I would say kind of because we have had a few struggles.

One struggle is recruiting volunteers because many people underestimated how easy and fun it is to volunteer. Not having enough volunteers has led to our volunteers having to do extra work and led to our events being understaffed.

Another struggle was starting the organization because I had to learn good and effective ways to recruit volunteers and structure the organization because I was a teen who had no experience with starting an organization.

Even with the struggles, I never gave up and kept trying. In the end, I wanted to help others and knew it would take a lot of work.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
What I think sets me apart from others is in Addition to We Are Artistic. I do activism, and I lead a club at my school. The club I lead at my school is called The Disability Student Alliance. It is a space for disabled students and allies to come together to have fun, play games, and hang out. I started it. I wanted to provide a safe and welcoming space where people could be themselves and feel accepted and included.

Anyone who wants to join the club is welcome to join or attend meetings. In the club, we also plan events and worked on projects. Last year, we hosted a Disability Justice Fair, which was a fair where we educated the school community about disabilities by setting up five tables a physical disabilities table, a neurodiversity table, a mental health table, a resources table, and a prize and information table. At the fair, we had a passport they could do, which had questions about topics we had at the fair, and the first 100 people who completed the passport got a small prize. Members of the school community and my club volunteered at the tables. It was during lunch. It allowed people to learn in a fun and interesting way and become an ally to the Disability community. I originated it. It was a collaboration between my club The Disability Student Alliance, and The Student Government Association. We had students make the graphics and tri-folds.

I also volunteer with Queer Youth Assemble where I lead a Birthday Card Project where we send free customized digital and homemade birthday cards to queer youth and allies who request one nationwide and I also co-organize DC queer events where queer youth and allies and come together to socialize. I have also co-organized DMV local protests through Queer Youth Assemble.

What does success mean to you?
I define success by if you’re happy like with art even though other people may not like it, if you like it and your happy then I would say your art creation you created was a success

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.weareartistic.net/
• Instagram: instagram.com/weareartisticgroup
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/weareartistic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/we-are-artistic
• Other: instagram.com/tigersdsa