Future@Work
Future@Work started as a career fair in Street Works Earth 2025, co-designed by ALIGN, El Puente, Street Works, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Waterfront Alliance, Kaleidospace, Make Justice Normal, Street Works, and Veggie Nuggets. It asked: what if career development were rooted in justice, care, creativity, and community?
Today, we're slowly turning it into a year round program focused on meeting the imagination that art can open up with opportunity: skill-building, strategies, and relationships to build lives that are sustainable and match our identities.
Co-Designers
A future that is here, now.
The future of our work.
A future that works for us, the collective.
Image: 2025 Street Works Earth. “Mean. Equity.” By Ernest Verrett & Anjali Deshmukh.
Job Resources
Check out this resource space, created by ALIGN and Street Works, meant for people looking to work in progressive nonprofit, social enterprise, or justice centered work.
Why
Right now, many folks — especially young ones and those growing up in communities hit first and worst by climate and inequality — are struggling to imagine stable, joyful futures. The uncertainty they face isn’t just economic; it’s emotional and existential.
We know it’s hard to think about your future — let alone plan a career — when you’re dealing with crises, overwhelmed, worried about money, navigating depression, or feel out of control of your life. Workforce development can’t exist in a vacuum. It needs to be designed with the realities of our daily lives in mind.
That’s why this festival joins workforce development, climate, arts, mental wellness. By weaving together relationships, expression, and concrete strategies that help people work towards a future that is beautiful and sustainable for them, we think agency and hope can both take root.
2025 Street Works Earth Activities
Check here for 2025 activities designed for Future@Work. And click here to see how all activities weaved together. If you have experience in New York City leading on the topic or know somebody that does, we'd love to hear from you. Please see a contact form below.
