About Us
Meet Our Team and Learn About the History of Bayani ng Kabataan
Our Mission
Bayani ng Kabataan (BNK) -The Filipino American Cultural and Social Justice School aims to build a K-6 school for Filipino/a/x students to have a well-rounded education in language, culture, traditional values, history, social justice, and community building.
Our Story
The original Bayani ng Kabataan (BNK) was founded during the late 90’s for the Filipino Youth Coalition’s (FYC) middle, high school, and college students. There was a huge need in our community because there were very few Filipino community schools in the entire nation. We were inspired after City Year’s Young Heroes program, Black Panther Freedom schools, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Maori cultural schools. We modeled our school and curriculum after these schools. We first started in San José with FYC's BNK Saturday community school and focused our curriculum on Philippine and Filipino American history and culture, leadership training, community advocacy, critical thinking, consciousness building, and community building. In 2021, we were able to pilot our first BNK K-6 online school.
Our Vision
Through a student-centered curriculum and approach, we hope to inspire our Filipina/o/x American youth to see the beauty in their culture and in themselves. It is our hope that students through our program become motivated and empowered to become future community leaders and world changers.
