Liberated Learning Community (LLC) is an innovative, learner-directed program that reimagines education in collaboration with an amazing array of community partners and supporters.
LLC invites the most vulnerable learners to co-create a learning experience that serves their needs and caters to their interests. LLC Learners are young people who are not served by conventional school models— they are those that have been pushed out, overlooked and over-policed, both inside and outside of school. Since 2007, LLC has created a sanctuary that connects system-impacted, BIPOC, queer, trans, immigrant, and disabled learners with the resources and opportunities that allow both them and their communities to thrive.
Liberated Learning Community (LLC) provides essential resources and support for Learners— especially system-impacted, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), queer, trans, immigrant, and disabled young people— to co-create learning and healing sanctuaries across Los Angeles.
LLC functions as a safe haven, support, and enrichment space for system-impacted youth where they can engage in trauma-informed, culturally-sustaining, and restorative practices that center intergenerational healing and wellbeing for themselves and their communities.
This transformative model is ever-evolving— shaped by the stated needs and interests of LLC Learners, some of the most vulnerable youth in Los Angeles. We provide access to mentorship, guidance, and opportunities that can nurture and inspire Learners, and in turn, empower them to foster community peace and wellness in their spheres of influence.
Some possible areas of inquiry include: educational, juvenile, healing, economic, community, and/or environmental justice; housing security; mental health; food sovereignty; organizing and movement building; peace building; and other emergent topics, depending on the priorities of the Learners.
We believe that when young people are supported to direct their own learning and grow in ways they choose, they can realize their full potential as the community members, learners, leaders, and social change makers we need today.
We recognize that our Learners are survivors. They arrive in our programs with all of the trauma of their past experiences and the ongoing challenges in their lives. They also arrive with a profound desire to change the conditions that they face, to thrive in ways that their families have never had the opportunity to do. These Learners are brilliant and resilient, and they deserve equitable access to the opportunities, resources and support they need, both to navigate existing structures and systems, as well as to cultivate their own critical consciousness.
Our programs empower Learners with opportunities, resourced support, and a level of agency that is traditionally reserved for students at elite, private institutions. By bolstering Learners' autonomy and ensuring their needs are met both intellectually and interpersonally, we co-create a learning environment that fosters meaningful growth and cultivates the kind of change that can reshape our society, making it possible for humanity to prolong its life on this struggling planet.
Our strategic approach to engaging young people has developed out of a 15-year history working with learners from Mar Vista Gardens (MVG)— an underserved and over-policed Section 8 housing community— and is rooted in a long lineage of freedom schools and community-led liberation schools historically impacted by state violence.
Initially administered by a LAUSD continuation school, our MVG Classroom functioned with great autonomy for many years, empowering youth in the community to learn, grow, heal, and organize. Over the years those young people began to transform their neighborhood from one of perpetual violence and criminalization to a more peaceful, community-minded, and collaborative environment.
Find out more about our history at Mar Vista Gardens here.
Generations of young people, youth organizers, educators, artists, activists, and professionals dedicated to youth justice and community wellbeing in Los Angeles have come together to envision LLC. Our learning model has been shaped by the combined wealth of those perspectives and experiences.
Building on the personalized, healing-centered, and culturally-sustaining learning model co-created by MVG Learners over the past 15 years, services are now expanded to support learners in a wide range of learning environments:
traditional schools
charter schools
alternative schools
continuation programs
special day schools
unschool
homeschool
adult school
college
vocational schools
apprenticeships
and life-long learning
You can explore more about our various Community Partners here.
Learn more about How We Make It Work here.
Learn more about Why We Need Alternative Education here.
