Peace Works Travel Blog

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Partner Spotlight: Alex Lehman - Co-founder and Executive Director of Coalition Z

Alexandra (“Alex”) Lehman is the co-founder and executive director of Coalition Z, an activism organization committed to amplifying the voices of progressive youth (coalitionz.org). Launched on Inauguration Day 2017, Coalition Z has expanded its reach nationwide, becoming a peer-to-peer network of twenty high school chapters and counting. Most recently, in the wake of the Parkland tragedy, Coalition Z provided a platform for students to bring attention to the gun reform debate and to lobby actively for more restrictive gun legislation. Next month, the Coalition Z founders will build on their efforts to increase student participation in our democracy and lead a cohort of NYC high schoolers to Albany to advocate for more expansive voting rights legislation. Simultaneously, the organization is working on six initiatives: creating youth cabinets; expanding the #MeToo movement to include the perspectives and experiences of high schoolers, becoming #WeToo; promoting legislation to protect the environment; revamping efforts to take back the House of Representatives; fighting restrictive voting laws; and creating opportunities for informed and civil discourse across party lines.

In addition to her work as a social and political activist, Alex is also a varsity softball catcher, a classically trained dancer, and the creator and teacher of an emotive movement curriculum for Head Start preschool classrooms in Connecticut. Alex spent the fall semester at The School for Ethics and Global Leadership in Washington, DC and recently returned to The Dalton School in New York City, where she is a junior.