Project Reach is a youth and adult-run, multiracial, multi-gender, grassroots, anti-discrimination, youth organizing center with a clear mission and commitment to challenging the destruction among, of, and between New York City's disparate youth communities. Implicit in that mission is a vision that recognizes that the empowerment of disenfranchised youth communities is critical and integral to their participation as future leaders in the larger movement for social justice.

Forty years ago (1971) , Asian American community activists started Project Reach to provide services to immigrant youth, a direct response to the rise in Chinese youth gangs. Over 25 years ago (1985) in an action unprecedented among race-segregated youth programs, Project Reach opened its door to all young people and put in place an innovative and dynamic youth organizing training space where understanding and confronting discrimination and systemic oppression would form the foundation of its core youth organizing training curriculum.

Project Reach provides crisis counseling and advocacy for young people others would not...including marginalized youth communities such as: youth of color; young women; immigrant/undocumented youth; lesbian, gay, bisexual, Two Spirit, transgender, question, and intersex youth; youth with mental/physical differences; hiv+/young people living with AIDS; foster care/homeless youth; and court-involved/incarcerated youth.

Project Reach brings together young people who would otherwise never meet, including: Native/Indigenous (Hidatsa-Mandan, Crow-Montana, Shinnecock-Long Island, Ojibwa-Wisconsin); Arab/Middle Eastern (Yemeni, Moroccan, Palestinian, Algerian); South/Central American (Guyanese, Venezuelan, Peruvian, Mexican nationals-Staten Island/San Antonio, Texas, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Guatemalan); South Asian (Pakistani, Bangladeshi , Indian; Queens); East/Southeast Asian (Fukienese, Toisanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian; Bronx); Black/Caribbean/African Descent; Latina/o (Dominican, Puerto Rican) White (Israeli, Jewish, Ukrainian, Russian; Brooklyn) rural and island youth (Catskill Mtns, Block Island, RI); and Multiracial youth. Two major collaborations established in this area are the Social Justice Boot Camp (2004-present) and the OUTRIGHT Consortium (LGBT youth, 2008-present).

Project Reach addresses issues that schools and community organizations avoid or are ill-equipped to handle, including intergroup tensions(racism, sexism, homophobia, immigrant discrimination, ability bias, etc.) and the absence of prevention education strategies. Major services provided to develop intervention skills and cultural competency include: workshops/trainings, teacher/staff development, technical assistance and train-the-trainer series for young people and adults.

Project Reach is a community center which provides a public, planning, and organizing space for individuals (such as artists, volunteers, students, etc.) and social action/community groups who would otherwise have nowhere to meet (due to lack of funds). Project Reach offers a 4,000 square foot center that is home to more than 20 different youth organizations and community groups, including emergency relief workers (post-9/11); cultural artists/educators, civil/human rights groups (immigrants living with AIDS, lgbt people, street vendors, tenants, etc.).

Project Reach creates opportunities for youth - and adults who work with them - to incubate new approaches and strategies and to build institutions that address discrimination and injustice and place social control in their own hands. Organizing readiness, youth organizing, and community empowerment are the products of these opportunities. Major accomplishments have included Pro-RADS, LGBT drop-in center; Homophobia-Heterosexism Documentation Project; Womyn’s Space Gender=Sexism=Violence Campaign; Positive Youth, employment project for HIV+/young people living with AIDS; and Young Men’s Anti-Sexism/Re-Defining Manhood Project.