This Saturday, October 28, wrapped up Youth Alliance’s participation in the Week of Action. Eduardo Navarro who works as the Development and Community Engagement Specialist for Youth Alliance explained that the Week of Action is meant to focus on raising awareness for after school programs in the community, as well as to promote the idea of restorative justice. The concept of restorative justice is to find positive strategies to work with at-risk youth, the community, and the school systems to redirect youth when issues arise in an effort to avoid a negative school experience. As Navarro explained, “We want to address the cause and help them succeed”. One way to do this according to Navarro is to insure that students “receive resources to make sure they don’t go on a path that can lead to prison”.
Part of the Youth Alliance’s goals for the Week of Action was also giving youth in the community an outlet and voice. Navarro explained that it was important to create an, “opportunity for students to feel like they were valued and their opinions mattered,” as well as to have, “kids incorporated into the decisions”. Working with multiple Hollister schools Hollister, the Youth Alliance planned various events to build positive steps with the local school system to create change. Topics discussed included restorative justice, after school programs, social justice, and school safety.
The first stop for the Week of Action took place at San Benito High School through its Listening Campaign. At this event banners were created that highlighted topics, such as school safety, and were displayed on campus. “Students were able to come up to the banners and write down their thoughts,” Navarro stated. The Youth Alliance also created a blank banner so that students could list issues that were potentially not covered. This same activity was brought to San Andres High School and repeated on Tuesday.
One of the most powerful events that occurred during the week, according to Navarro, was the community circle that took place at San Andreas on Wednesday. This event included music, discussions, a workshop on restorative justice, as well as information about it. Attended by students, educators, members of the community, and Youth Alliance staff, students were encouraged to share their point of view. In Navarro’s words, “It was very powerful, students talking to administrators as equals”. At this event students also had the opportunity to write comments about what made them feel safe and appreciated on silhouettes of other students. These silhouettes were then put on display at Saturday’s events.
Switching gears into a younger age group, the Youth Alliance worked with students at Calaveras Elementary School on Thursday to put on a voluntary march after school. The purpose of the march was to express to students, “why it is important to do a march,” and, “why their voice does matter,” Navarro explained. The Youth Alliance also worked with students ranging from first to eighth grade earlier in the month to create art. Nancy Garcia, who is the Site Coordinator at Calaveras Elementary, shared that students created their pieces during a four week series including an, “enrichment component, VAPA (Visual And Performing Arts), healthy living, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)”.
Saturday there was an event at Art Annex where community members were able to read the words placed on the silhouettes, as well as to view student created art work that ranged in content from self-portraits to pieces that used faces and words to express what the youth in our community need to succeed in life. The evening wrapped up with two students, Emily and Rogelo Arredondo singing songs with inspiring messages to the group in attendance.
The Week of Action was just a step in the Youth Alliance’s plans to work with students, schools, and the community to help all youth within San Benito County succeed through opportunities like after school programs and the promotion of restorative justice. “Our kids are hurting and we need to be able to address that,” Navarro shared. The next step for the Youth Alliance is to create an education summit where all groups will be invited to come together to look at the issues youth are facing and to create a solution based plan.
Youth Alliance can be contacted at 831-636-2853.
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