What is our purpose?

We are an organization devoted to giving young people and teens a platform to speak about issues which are prevalent in today’s society. We dedicate ourselves to various SAYV Events, in which the voices of diverse groups of youth are explored through their own formulated speeches. With SAYV Project, we hope to eliminate the societal pressure from the adult demographic which promotes thought in a specific way, tailored to an outward display of intellectual ability. Instead, our goal is to provide validation in merely existence of opinions and ideas, no matter what dialect is used or what approaches are explored. SAYV is dedicated to eliminating the idea that valid opinions come with a superficially intellectual prowess through giving any young individual the opportunity to speak and consequently empower them to help create change within their communities.

Through empowerment and community organization, we intend to allow space for two key actions: networking and resource-sharing, both with a youth-centric focus.

Having hosted our first event the night of August 17th at Waynflete School in Portland, Maine, we have already established a specific format through which we hope to accomplish our goals. We intend to use this method to spur succeeding events hosted in various school and community spaces statewide. For all future events, our hopes are to record every speech that occurs so as to upload a culminating collection of videos to this website. See Visions for more information.