I will begin this response with the disclaimer that I am not a San Antonio native. My experience of San Antonio is limited by the 5 years that I have lived here, 4 years as a full time student at the University of the Incarnate Word and 1 year working as a City Year AmeriCorps Member serving the San Antonio Community as a full time tutor, role model and mentor to youth at Luther Burbank High School in the South Side.
My work with City Year helped me develop a closer connection to the San Antonio community and allowed me to recognize that there are aspects of San Antonio I wish I could help improve. San Antonio is a vast and fast growing city rich with culture and traditions with a lot to offer visitors, but from my perspective as a resident…show more content… It takes a community of conscious people to recognize the potential of young people, their unique generational strengths and quirks and to capitalize on them. Having served with City Year at Burbank High School I learned that young people want to be listened to and to be acknowledged as valued members of our community. I believe that everyone is capable of being a leader they just need the opportunity to step up to the position and it is up to US to create those spaces where young people can feel empowered to be leaders within their communities. A few ways to create more opportunities for young people is by hosting neighborhood wide events that expose young people to different careers, academic pursuits, world cultures and the arts and perhaps inviting young people to take an active role in the planning process for such events. I am confident that with the contacts and relationships I have built working with City Year and volunteering with Girls Inc., I can assist in creating these events aimed at engaging and educating young people as well as their families. I know that there are many youth organizations in San Antonio who also share this mission to empower young people and I would use the resources and contacts I have to try and collaborate with these organizations to bring fun and engaging opportunities to youth in the south…show more content… During my time at university I volunteered briefly with Battleground Texas and with them I was deputized to register voters. They selected me to volunteer with them because of the fact that I was living in the south side of San Antonio where they had noticed that there were not many people registered to vote for how considerably large of a population it has. This is a trend I further noticed years later once I began my work with City Year. I noticed that many students either had very little knowledge about politics local and national or they had little to no interest at all. I found that many of these students did not see their families concerned with politics nor did they see a place for them as change agents in the political system. This all goes back to lack of community engagement opportunities. If we can find ways to create a stronger sense of community in our neighborhoods than this could encourage families to take a more active role in shaping their communities by becoming informed and voting in local elections such as school board and city council elections which directly affect their communities. I would contribute to community engagement in the south side by contacting local community organizations and try to partner with them to host community nights, block parties,