Thrill-Seeking for Nerds (who want to change the world)

One of the ways I try to balance preparing for lobby meetings and advocacy-related presentations on top of my schoolwork is combining assignments whenever I can. Over the years, I've given speeches about calling Congress , debated foreign aid, and written Model UN resolutions about issues I advocate for in real life as school projects. It saves a lot of time, and I enjoy the work more when it's a topic I'm passionate about! 7th grade social studies included a Model United Nations project, and my friend and I wrote our resolution about climate change.  This year, my school's winter exams look very different because of the virtual format. For Latin, our "final" is in two parts: one is a translation test I'll take on Monday, and the other is a persuasive essay in English  using a list of figures of speech we've observed Cicero's First Catilinarian Oration (which was in Latin). Since our essay could be any topic, I turned mine into a chance to practic...

Happy December! Looking ahead to a new U.S. Presidential administration and a new Congress, what will global health advocacy look like in the next few months? I just watched a really inspiring RESULTS webinar about this! Our first priority today is calling U.S. Senators.   A bipartisan COVID-19 response bill is in the works and it includes some funding to fight poverty in the America, like $25 billion in emergency rental assistance for the first quarter of 2021 and $26 billion in food and agriculture assistance-- consider that a "down payment" to build on, because activists are going to push for higher in future bills. Disappointinly, however, there is NO funding at all for a global response to the pandemic! We applaud efforts to get badly needed COVID relief to low-income Americans , but it's incredibly short-sighted to neglect the global need to address the COVID-19 pandemic. So, please call your Senators and ask them to speak to Senators McConnell and Schumer about i...

Today is known as "Thanksgiving" to a lot of Americans. To many Indigenous people, however, it's "Day of Mourning" instead. I'm not Native, and my family got up to watch the parade in New York City on TV today. We made pies yesterday. While it's nice to have these family traditions, the historical (and present!) context of the so-called Thanksgiving holiday is horrific.  A year ago, I didn't even know whose stolen land I was living on. (If you don't either, let's fix that right now! Check out  https://native-land.ca/ .) Now, I really want to learn more about how to support building Indigenous power. Park near my house- Osage and Kickapoo land From supporting land defenders at their protests and talking to our families to pressuring the new Biden administration about policy, there's no shortage of actions for young activists to take.  I learned about these action steps today from a Sunrise Movement email by Krystal Two Bulls, LANDBACK Camp...

Hey, I'm back! Sorry about the hiatus from blog posts, and please forgive me for this one's title. Now that my term paper for U.S. History is submitted and I've taken a few days to recover from the election phonebanking frenzy, I finally got a spare moment to write something. The day after Trump was elected in 2016, a classmate came up to me at school nearly in tears and said "Yara, what are we gonna do now..." I remember being shocked and upset myself, and shakily responding, "We have so much work to do." And when I stumbled sleepily into the kitchen on Saturday morning in pajamas, the conversation went something like this: Parents: *cheering* Me: Did they call it? Parents: Yup. Me: Biden? Parents, laughing: Yup. Me: Okay, I can work with that. The answer is the same, no matter who's in power. We continue to organize and fight for everyone's rights and dignity. I have to say, I'm really excited that my generation defeated Donald Trump. I fee...

Shana Tova if this is your new year!  Since we found out that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away , it's been an emotional and scary time for many. RBG,  as she was known to my generation, inspired millions of people as a famous feminist. She wasn't perfect, as I've been learning about recently, including her complicated record on tribal issues . We have to acknowledge the shortcomings of political "legends." What really matters for our actions going forward isn't an individual person-- it's the movement. I still greatly respect RBG for what she was able to do for LGBTQ+ equality and women's rights, and I'm very worried about who will take her place on the Supreme Court. via @itstheglucoseguardian I wish I had time to process this privately, especially while I'm observing the Jewish High Holy Days.  May her memory be a blessing; I wish Americans could come together to mourn her and honor her legacy and have those much-nee...

It's frustrating to feel like you're too young to even be a "young" advocate. Yet, that's what so many elementary school advocates face. College-age activists are the "younger generation" and so are high school students. Middle schoolers are rare, and then it seems like people don't even consider kids 5th grade and younger to be real advocates at all. This blog is written by a teenager, mostly for teenagers, but the whole point is that there's no minimum age to speak out and influence policy. Yes, the methods and challenges are different depending on your age, but you can still do it. In fact, younger kids have even more of an advantage sometimes because people are interested in what you have to say! Your age makes you stand out.  Elementary school students actually can understand how the legislative sausage gets made, metaphorically speaking, just as well as any adult if you take the time to engage them in that process. My mom did that for my si...

I used to have a mild stutter. I started going to speech therapy for it in 5th grade, in fact, and my speech pathologist told me to make phone calls to family members to practice the techniques she called "EZ speech". This involved stuff like taking more pauses and breaths, pacing myself through the syllables of a word, and stretching the first syllable like "Hellllllo" so I didn't get stuck repeating the same sounds like "w-w-w-w-why?" In my tween-age opinion, it sucked (even though in the long term it totally helped and I'm grateful for that).      I couldn't even tell you why it made me so uncomfortable. All I knew was, I did not like phone calls one bit-- not even with aunts or grandparents. Yet somehow, I got to the point where I can call 5 Congressional offices in one sitting with little to no stress. It took time. It was scary, then it was novel, and now it's routine (an empowering habit). Eleven years old      It’s morning. The sun...

It's strange to think about coming back to school, after all that's happened this summer. But when my textbooks arrived in the mail, it hit me that a rhythm of Zoom classes is about to settle in, whether I'm ready or not.  If you felt at all called to action as I did over the summer, then that should absolutely continue, grow, and evolve throughout your life. It starts with the transition to the school year.  School clubs are a great way to plug into advocacy as a student. These groups are based in your school and run by fellow students, so they're more accessible than a lot of national advocacy organizations. Additionally, with a direct link to the school community you have a built-in network of people you can include in your advocacy, and show policymakers that you represent a subset of constituents with shared experiences (if you choose to lobby, that is-- there are so many potential advocacy activities besides that, too!) Today, I'm giving an overview of the clu...

Hey, I'm back! How's phonebanking going? It's a real force for change, I'm telling ya (and Teen Vogue agrees ).  Let's start with the most exciting news... JAMAAL BOWMAN WON !!! Wow, I am just so, so happy for NY-16 and that I got to play a small role in helping to make that happen. Everyone who made even a few calls to voters, donated a few dollars, cast their votes for Jamaal, and more really made a difference. June 22 and 23, the day before and the day of Jamaal and Charles' primaries, were full of phonebanking for us at the Sunrise Movement. It was busy, exhausting, and rewarding-- all part of what we call "GOTV mode": Get Out the Vote. I must have done something like six or seven phonebank shifts in two days. (Phonebanking: make calls to voters and convince them to vote for a candidate you like) Sunrise is part of the movement for climate justice , which means we fight for candidates who tackle climate change as a priority issue, and we stand with...