Transforming the Lives of Formerly Incarcerated Youth through Healing and Justice

Unbroken. Uncompromising. Unapologetic. Those three words, says George Galvis, succinctly describe the character of the Bay Area youth leadership and racial justice nonprofit he co-founded, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, CURYJ — pronounced “courage.” 

After George Floyd was murdered and the national spotlight was on racial justice, Galvis says that rather than sit around and discuss the racist systems he has spent his adult life trying to dismantle, CURYJ was on the streets of Oakland leading and organizing the marches. 

“We say what we mean, and we mean what we say, and no one ever questions our integrity,” Galvis says. “Some may disagree with our political strategy, but they know we stick to our values.”

For the last decade, CURYJ has been helping to heal and transform youth impacted by the foster care and juvenile justice systems – young people who Galvis says “have been deemed disposable or stigmatized as the worst of the worst” – into community leaders and advocates through paid internships and long-term life coaching. The organization is on a mission to end youth incarceration in the next ten years. 

“We work with those young people, and we help them find their sacred purpose, recognize that they’re in fact a blessing and that they’re able to contribute to their community, to their families,” Galvis says. 

Like many who get into this type of work, Galvis had his own struggles and run-ins with the juvenile justice system. Having grown up in the Bay Area in a violent home, Galvis says he replicated that violence on the streets, eventually catching three felony charges as a teenager for his role in a drive-by shooting. Fortunately, he says, he was charged as a minor, saving him from decades spent languishing in adult prison. 

He grabbed hold of the life-altering moment and began attending college, kicking off the beginnings of his own healing journey. He earned an undergraduate degree in ethnic studies, connected with his Native American ancestral heritage and cut his teeth as a grassroots organizer, and then went on to earn a master’s degree in city planning from U.C. Berkeley. 

CURYJ was born out of Galvis’ organizing efforts in 2010 to successfully end Oakland’s long-standing practice of gang injunctions – court orders that he says criminalize neighborhoods of color. 

This year, the Unity Council and BRIDGE Housing granted CURYJ a 99-year lease – effective ownership – of the ground floor commercial space of a new affordable housing development across from the Fruitvale BART station where Oscar Grant was killed on New Year’s Day in 2009. The 7,500-square-foot space, called the Oscar Grant Youth Empowerment Zone, will house CURYJ’s programs and offer young adults a safe space to heal. 

“We really felt like the name was appropriate because Oscar represents the young people that we work with,” says Galvis, who helped organize the Justice for Oscar Grant movement. 

The space, slated for completion in 2023, will include a café run by youth and house CURYJ’s programs: Dream Beyond Bars, a paid fellowship for formerly incarcerated young adults; Homies 4 Justice, paid internships for young people interested in becoming community leaders; and Life Coaching, which provides long-term individualized support to youth.  

“People come into our space and they’ve never felt loved, but when they come into CURYJ they genuinely feel loved, they feel supported, they feel welcomed and embraced,” Galvis says. “Those are the metrics that matter to me.”