We’re freshly into the new year, and we’re excited to share what we have in the works for 2026 and beyond! Our boards are growing, we’re planning into 2028, and we’re making headway on our long-term goals with new programs.
Over the last few months, we’ve expanded our Advisory Board and Board of Directors! New Advisory Board member Jules Csillag brings her passion for disability justice and experiences as a speech-language therapist, educator, and writer to the Octavia Project. We’re also welcoming Co-Founder Chana Porter to our Board of Directors. In addition to her deep passion for the power of speculative fiction to open up new pathways for young women and trans and nonbinary youth, Chana brings her skills as a novelist, playwright, and teacher to her new board role.
As we continue to grow our boards, we’re also diving deeper into developing our three-year plan. This month, we met with our Board of Directors to build a bold and actionable plan that sustainably maps a path to meeting the growing needs of our community.
New pilot programs will be one pathway to meeting these needs. We’re excited to share more about our pilot Spring Studio Lab soon, and we’ll be reaching out to essential community members, like yourselves, this spring to help us design additional programs.
Looking towards warmer days, applications are now open for our high school Summer Institute. Our five-week Summer Institute will run from mid July to mid August, Monday-Thursday from 12-4pm in Brooklyn. We’re excited to welcome a new cohort of young women and trans, nonbinary, and/or gender non-conforming youth ages 14-19 for the 12th summer in a row!
We’re looking for a new home for our middle school Summer Camp that meets our growing needs. If you know of a school or organization that may be interested in hosting us, or if your school would like to host us, let us know.
This moment requires us to show up in new and expanded ways for young folks, and we’re making sure we’ll be there. Thank you for committing to being there with us!