Youth Input -- It's Out There

I've been sitting and waiting for those who attended our Los Alamos meeting last week to answer some of the XQ super school challenge questions that I posted in my blog and put on Facebook. Nothing yet. I decided to be positive and think about what we DID talk about.

We talked about some of the issues Los Alamos faces, which may be similar to other communities. Teen suicide, depression, and underage drinking were mentioned. I asked for ideas for projects that tie into any of those ideas, and the idea to start up a suicide hotline like UNM's Agora was brought up. Excellent!

I now hope to help them form a learning community to tackle the project. But I need input from teens around the state, not just Los Alamos.

Effect Social Change Through the Media
This morning, as I read the really good free publication, New Mexico Kids!, I saw that there is already a lot of good youth input out there that I can use to answer the XQ challenge application questions.

Today, I found a story in their Jan/Feb 2016 edition about Generation Justice, a youth radio show in Albuquerque that values community and works for social change. This group started out ten years ago as a project through KUNM. It continues to this day. They still use the KUNM radio station.

This idea would translate well to any learning community in the L&LNM super school. Or a newsletter. Each learning community will have to communicate what they are doing as they do it, to L&LNM administration but also to the community they serve.

A radio show and/or newsletter is a good way to do this. Or they could talk about their projects on local radio programs such as the Peak's Community Talk on Sunday mornings. I just heard the end of their program about Agora. In the next article I talk about, "Youth Voices", they mention film as a way to communicate as well.

Back to youth input -- the Generation Justice article included some of the activities they have participated in, which tell me a lot about what is important to our youth. They are:

• Little Feet Walk Loud campaign -- to raise awareness of early child development
• March/rally in honor of Cesar Chavez
• Knight-City University of New York summer internship for aspiring journalists of color
• Journalism to raise awareness about Native American issues

Santa Fe Youth Voices

I flipped through the pages of New Mexico Kids! further and found an article called, "Youth Voices". It's just my lucky Sunday, I guess. This is what I found:

• Important issues
• community
• LGBT 
• homelessness
• mental illness
• abusive family relationships
• bullying
• animal welfare
• deforestation
• environmental and social justice, local and global
• the economy
• drug abuse
• immigration
• everyone really IS equal
• global warming
• "What worries me the most in the future is the waking up and finding out that we don't have water, that our aquifer are dried up, that our glaciers are melting and the water is getting higher on every continent..."
• Sustainable living
• This is what I hear from my kids, both in their early 20s. They are the ones who got me to eat organic, cut out meat, think about my environment...
• College 
• some still believe in it
• psychology, gender studies, nursing, physical therapy, film, international relations ("...to create a world in which communication is valued over violent action.")

Urban Conservation Corps

I'm always saying that we need to listen to our youth when we look to the future but sometimes, we older generations have something worthwhile to offer that our youth listen to because it speaks to them -- and that is summed up in a New Mexico Kids! guest column about the Urban Conservation Corps:

• "No matter if they choose a trade or pursue academics, it's most important that they come away from the Corps experience with a better understanding of nature and appreciate what is all around them." 

I see in our youth the desire to do just that. In all the reading I did this morning, I saw nothing on capitalism or making money. 

I feel hopeful.