About Dream Summer
Dream Summer is an annual, 8-week, national fellowship of the UCLA Labor Center’s Dream Resource Center (DRC). Through Dream Summer, the DRC has provided close to 900 fellowship opportunities to immigrant youth and allies and has partnered with over 265 social justice organizations across the country.
Dream Summer:
- Empowers immigrant youth and allies to be the next generation of social justice advocates through leadership and professional development, movement building, and on-the-ground experience in social justice organizations.
- Creates a safe and healing space for immigrant youth and allies to connect and build with one another.
- Promotes an intersectional, cross-racial, and intergenerational approach to social justice that addresses the needs of immigrant communities.
Fellows are placed within social justice-based host organizations and work closely with their host organization to incorporate and strengthen the role of immigrant rights issues alongside the organization’s social justice work. Over the summer, fellows engage in and lead social justice efforts by aligning the call for immigrant rights alongside the unique challenges of queer and transgender communities, Asian and Pacific Islander communities, and Black immigrant communities. Additionally, they tackle concerns including the ongoing mass incarceration and criminalization of people of color, worker rights, and health care access for all.
Dream Summer 2024
Dream Summer 2024 is set to be a virtual/hybrid experience. Retreats will be hybrid and will follow COVID-19 regulations and safety. Placements will be determined based on host organization guidelines. Each placement is different, and each host organization will have their respective COVID-19 protocols in place.
We will do our best to pair fellows with an organization that meets their preference of working remote, in person, or hybrid; however, we cannot guarantee accommodations for all fellows. Given the developing changes of COVID-19, we expect host organizations to accommodate the safety of our fellows. We will notify participants immediately of any changes.
Dream Summer Dates
June 20 – June 22, 2024: Hybrid Opening Retreat
June 24 – August 13, 2024: Placement
August 13, 2024: The Last Day of Fellows at Host organization
August 15 – August 16, 2024: Closing retreat
Fellow Application
Application Opens: January 5, 2024
Application Deadline: February 9, 2024 at 12 PM (noon) PT
Dream Summer fellows receive a $7,000 fellowship award, leadership and professional development training, and become part of a national alumni network of close to 900 social justice leaders. Dream Summer is open to both experienced social justice leaders and those who wish to begin or strengthen their involvement in social justice.
The fellowship is open to all immigrant youth, regardless of immigration status (undocumented youth, youth with DACA or TPS, etc. are all welcome to apply). Applicants do not need to be students at UCLA to qualify for the fellowship.
The deadline for Dream Summer 2024 has passed; however, if you are interested in becoming a Dream Summer fellow in the future, please contact Dream Summer coordinators Gaby Gil and Jessica Olivares at ucladreamsummer@gmail.com.
If you’d like to receive an email notification when the application opens again, click this link to sign up for our mailing list. Thank you for your interest in Dream Summer!
Host Organization Application
Application Opens: November 13, 2023
Application Deadline: February 16, 2024 at 12 PM (noon) PT
For Dream Summer 2024, the DRC is seeking to partner with organizations that address issues intersecting with the experiences of immigrant youth such as educational access, health, labor, mass incarceration and deportation, and the unique experiences of Asian and Pacific Islander, Black, Muslim, and LGBTQ+ undocumented communities.
The deadline for Dream Summer 2024 has passed; however, if you are interested in becoming a Dream Summer host organization in the future, please contact Dream Summer coordinators Gaby Gil and Jessica Olivares at ucladreamsummer@gmail.com.
