DC Youth Moving Forward is a youth led advocacy and action group supported by DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. In this blog, two new members take time to reflect on their experience in the program.
From Advocacy to Business Marketing
My name is Larenai Swann and I am a recent high school graduate of Basis Public Charter School. While being in DC Youth Moving Forward, I learned the importance of communication. We needed communication not only between the team, but also to do outreach. While trying to get interviews for the video campaign we had to communicate with our peers to see if they wanted to share their stories about their interactions with Transit Officers. Although I did outreach, I could have done more by speaking with and connecting with peers outside of my network. It’s important to communicate with others.
My favorite lesson this year was learning more about what it takes to address social issues through systemic change because it can be applied to everything in life. To truly solve a problem you have to understand the root cause of the issue and go from there. I also enjoyed meeting with the Gandhi Brigade Media Youth Group. Seeing people my age accomplishing similar goals was inspiring. It is always good to see someone or a group of people you can relate to doing something similar to you.
In college, I want to be a Marketing and Business Management double major. This program gave me a taste of what it may be like to study marketing. We designed flyers and created a social media schedule which is the more creative side of marketing. We designed outreach plans, conducted research which all tie into marketing. The work of our team was parallel to some of the things I want to do in the future and I appreciated using some of those skills now to help me in the future.
You Never Know What to Expect, Just Take the Leap
Rising Senior at Eastern High School
I decided to join DC Youth Moving Forward to strengthen my public speaking skills and learn how to advocate! I learned to speak out and participate more and those skills have helped me outside of the group with my participation in classes in my school and raising my opinions to the school community.
My rule is to finish what I start and DC Youth Moving Forward has helped me with that, keeping my interest and doing something that will make a difference some day. My advice for anyone that wants to join is to take the opportunity, there aren’t many programs that truly care about what you’re doing outside of the program.
I decided to join the team to gain experience in one of my interests, public speaking. When I became aware of this program, I signed up and hoped for the best. When I was called in for an interview, I didn’t know what to expect. When I came to the location, I was surprised to see other young people my age there for the same purpose. During the interview we were asked a few questions, as we got further into the interview process, we did an engaging activity where we picked topics out of a bin and talked about the subject. We ate and talked about our experiences and opinions.
I learned you never know what to expect unless you experience it yourself and I took the necessary steps of showing up and engaging which was an ultimate success in learning more about myself and my advice for anyone who wants to join as well.