Rachel Burg Belin
she/her
|
Lexington, KY
Managing Partner & Co-Founder
Bio
Rachel Burg Belin believes young people are not the future of civic life, they are the present. As the Managing Partner and co-founder of the Kentucky Student Voice Team (KSVT), she has spent over a decade building the infrastructure to prove it.
KSVT is a youth-led organization that positions young Kentuckians as co-researchers, storytellers, and policy partners in the education conversations and decisions that shape their lives. Since its founding in 2012, the organization has conducted statewide research reaching tens of thousands of students, founded The New Edu (Kentucky's first student-run online news publication), won student seats on the Kentucky Board of Education and district school boards, and launched litigation asserting students' constitutional right to an adequate education. Rachel's role in all of it is to build and circulate power around the kind of intergenerational scaffolding that makes meaningful youth leadership possible--and sustainable.
Her path to this work runs through the full information ecosystem she now helps young people navigate. She has served as a radio news director, media literacy coordinator, social studies teacher, education policy aide, and development consultant, working across four states and launching nine efforts designed to strengthen youth voices in public life. That range is the point. Rachel's practice sits at the intersection of how young people encounter information, make sense of it, create it, and use it to act.
In partnership with students, her work has been recognized with a George Foster Peabody Award, a Citizens & Scholars Civic Spring Award, the Kentucky Nonprofit Network Excellence in Public Policy Award, and the Pathway 2 Tomorrow Breakthrough in Education Innovation Award.
She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.A.T. from the University of Rochester.