TL@W Is Back for Its 21st(!) Summer Programing Session

It’s crazy to believe that MassCOSH’s first ever TL@W participants could now have children old enough to join the program themselves, a true testament to the longevity of a program that has reached thousands of young people with the message their health and safety on the job matters. On July 5, TL@W started its seven-week annual summer programming with 19 young people, including several team leaders who had worked with TL@W throughout the school year and are now stepping into leadership roles.

These peer leaders are paid MassCOSH employees who are learning to advocate for their right to safety, health, and justice at school, work, and in the community. TL@W Peer Leaders are also working on four different projects that reflect different aspects of the labor and social justice movements. We are incredibly grateful to the City of Boston Successlink Program and the John Hancock MLK Scholars Program for providing the resources so that these teens can earn an hourly wage while doing this critical work.

Team One is learning more about COVID-19, science-backed vaccine information, figuring out how to best advocate for COVID safety at work, and how to create tools to combat COVID misinformation. Team Two is focused on the gig economy to give the peer leaders a better understanding of what exactly the term means and will be working towards becoming more engaged in organizing and advocacy efforts to protect these vulnerable workers. Team Three will learn about challenges facing our public schools today, how our union partners are fighting for better school conditions, and will work to add student voices to the fight for a better school system. Team Four will be tackling climate change and its impacts here in Boston with unprecedented heat waves creating unsafe conditions for students, workers, and other community members.

Sadly, this is Youth Programs Director Joe Tache’s last summer with TL@W and MassCOSH, but we have exciting news coming soon about who will be leading this extraordinary youth program going forward – stay tuned!