Non-profit Youth Empowerment Summit encourages teen advocacy

COLUMBUS, Ohio ( WCMH ) — The Hilltop based non-profit MY Project USA hosted its second annual Youth Empowerment Summit Friday.

All summer long young people in its summer program have been on a journey to become advocates in the community. The summit was a chance for the teens to show off their progress.

The young leaders designed and led the program themselves. Organization leaders said over the last few weeks the teenagers researched topics they are passionate about where they want to see change happen.

They chose topics like guns and gang violence, substance abuse and gender equality. Some of them have personal stories to connect with the topic they chose.

“It fills my heart. I mean, it really, really warms my heart to see those kids who came just six weeks ago and didn’t want to take a picture of themselves. They were hiding their faces. They didn’t want to do anything,” Zerqa Abid, founder of MY Project USA, said. “They didn’t understand why their body language matters. They didn’t understand how they dress up and how they hold themselves matters. And now they understand it.”

Abid said she was impressed by the teens’ presentations and how hard they worked on their research. She said they researched topics like the health consequences vaping can have on a young person and what violence can do to a young persons mental health.

“I think that tells us how much potential we have in the same children who could have been just playing video games this summer,” Abid said.

The teens said this summer has helped them build the confidence to raise their voices.

“I’m not good at public speaking, and I have a lot of things in my mind that I want to say but I don’t because I worry about everyone else worrying about if I’m making sense, worrying about if what I’m saying is even important,” Amal Amif, one of the leaders in the summer program, said. “So I’d like to maybe continue talking about these issues more and definitely talk to more people about them because that’ll spread the word,”

It wasn’t just teens with MY Project USA. Members of the Columbus organization Black Girl Rising were also there.

Malaya Hale said she hopes to impress the importance of knowing your culture. Leaders of both organizations say they hope this is a start of a new partnership.

“I think working with a new set of people with a completely different background and completely different experiences to come together and to advocate for common ground,” Hale said.

The youth in this summit range from age 13 to 18. They said they hope to bring these presentations to a bigger stage next, such as city hall or the statehouse.

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