Building joy, resilience, and strength through climbing & community.

Kinship Climbing Collective empowers young women and gender expansive youth through rock climbing.

Kinship Climbing Collective (Kinship) is a rock climbing and leadership development program serving young women and gender expansive youth from New York City public high schools. Our mission is to build joy, resilience, and strength through climbing & community. Our completely free, volunteer-run program provides our students with unparalleled opportunities to grow not just as climbers, but as a community of outdoor leaders.

Kinship is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. We serve students from public high schools across New York City and have built a supportive, intergenerational community that provides a safe space for dialogue around issues related to gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and other dimensions of identity.

  • A young Latina woman smiles while climbing an outdoor cliff

  • Three young participants look on while wearing rock climbing helmets

  • A young Latina woman in glasses pauses on a rock climb to smile at the camera

  • A group of students and mentors pause on a winter hike to pose smilingly for the camera