Since 1982,
Building Community, Empowering Youth, and Organizing Change
Our Mission
FLA develops youth resiliency and leadership to create long-lasting systemic change by empowering and mobilizing youth leaders to advocate for policies that improve their lives and the lives of their peers and their communities.
Our Vision
FLA envisions a world where every youth regardless of where they come from is empowered to take responsibility for their own destiny by becoming leaders in their own lives, their families, and community.
FLA Way
In service to community, Future Leaders of America provides leadership training, educational experiences, and promotes the personal development of youth and families, for the purpose of fostering a greater awareness and participation in responsible leadership in a global and democratic society.
Our Story
The organization was first founded as a grassroots response to concerns about the high incidence of destructive behaviors in Latino youth including high school dropouts, gang activity, substance abuse, lack of parent involvement and limited civic engagement, amongst other high-risk behaviors. The founder, Gil Cuevas, also saw a void of Latino/a leaders and role model for youth. Unfortunately, not much has changed since 1982. Oxnard and Santa Barbara still face high incidence of high risk activities among Latino/a youth.
Year round programming is provided to participants that continue to engage them in leadership, education and advocacy through University Seminars, Youth groups, Facilitator training and Family Leadership camps. With this program, FLA has opened doors to new realities to over 8,000 unduplicated youth throughout the state of California. With the support of FLA, Latino/a youth have attended prestigious universities around the nation including Columbia, Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, UCSB, UCLA, and Duke to name a few. FLA youth have gone on to become successful lawyers, educators, non-profit leaders and elected officials! Because of FLA, youth succeed!
Today, Future Leaders embraces its rich and longstanding history by renewing its commitment to helping youth achieve their full potential in school, their career choices, and in life. Our peer to peer model continues to provide youth opportunities to succeed in leadership and in school.
