Last month, 20 youth completed the Civic Empowerment Leadership training led by YLI and Daly City Youth Health Center. This program drew in youth ages 15-25 from across San Mateo County to learn about systems that influence health, policy-making processes, and tools for advocacy.  

Youth participants were most excited about being able to talk directly to local city council members, school board members, and youth advocates. Some of the policy changes they were interested in were local environmental protection, access to mental health resources in schools, and school dress code policies. As a result of this program, a few youth were able to gain internships for James Coleman’s campaign and other youth are diving deeper into their school leadership team. Daly City Youth Health Center was able to create a youth seat on the Daly City Health Center advisory board.

This one-year pilot program was funded by Get Healthy San Mateo County as a strategy to advance racial equity and increase the pipeline of youth who are empowered to promote healthy policies in their communities. YLI plans to continue this leadership training as a spring program. 

“This program has positively benefited my life as it has shown me that youth can make a change in their communities, they just need the resources. For most of my life, I’ve been passionate about making a change in my community, but never knew how to go about it. I always used the excuse that since I was a minor, I couldn’t make a significant change. YLI has made me realize that that statement is incorrect- that through boards, commissions, programs, etc., we can do much more than make change, we can implement it.”  

-Malena N.