Blog Post #1: "In a World Where Youth Hold the Power"

After reading the article ‘A World Where Youth Hold the Power’ by Adeola Oredola with members of Youth in Action, it made me have a new outlook on how the youth in our country are being educated and understood. Some of the main ideas in the article are bringing out the “youth’s capacity to lead, their natural ability to innovate, and their desire for positive change.”  To put it simply, the Youth in Action organization gives the youth in this program the power to run and help make all the decision in the organization. By learning these skills they can apply it to their own life experiences.

The YIA model does not resonate with me because I was not lucky enough to experience being  part of a program that helps the growth of youth’s natural abilities. But after reading the article and the stories of the members of the YIA organization I could relate to the issues they faced in the school system. The Learning and Speaking Truth section in the article written by Bukky Olugemi was a section I could really relate to and understand. I remember being in high school and reading books that I could not relate too, similar to Bukky. If we reading books that we could actually relate to and had open discussions on how we felt about each book we read (using the plus/delta model) it would be a completely different experience. Also I believe that if those discussion were to happen we would all have a better meaning and understanding of the books we read.

I agree with all points that were made in this article. If we started giving youth more power in all different areas of their lives it will only help them as they got older. That was the common theme of all the stories in the article. All the members of YIA said that the skills they learned from being in this organization only helped in their futures. I hope that the YIA model one day will be in all schools across the country so that all youths can gain the type of confidence and skills the youth’s in YIA have.