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Show the Their Powers

-Ron Lapitan, Former Community Outreach Coordinator

Our Health as Right Clubs have different styles for addressing our community’s public pressing public health problems. Our Fairfax HS Club picked one issue to focus all their efforts on: empowering youth in the foster system to finish high school. Our Annandale HS Club picks small projects to do one at a time. Currently, it is researching, writing, and shooting an educational video about the health impacts of smoking, which they will send to an elementary school. Other teams with a great amount of zeal and capacity, like the Mt. Vernon HS Club, create several service projects and divide into teams to work on all of them at once.

The Mt. Vernon students start each meeting with progress updates from each of the teams.
“We found cards we could buy for the teachers and janitors,” said Catherine from the team working to make school staff feel more appreciated.
“I got the psychiatrist to come speak to us next week,” said Elizabeth from the team working to raise awareness of the school’s counselors.
“We got the administrator we were talking with to meet with us today to talk about our condoms project,” said Esther.

Then that administrator appeared in her suit and sat down.
“I would like to hear your agenda,” she said.
“We wanted to ask about the possibilities of putting condoms in the bathrooms or in the nurse’s office, to reduce teen pregnancy,” started Esther.

The admin nodded thoughtfully. “What is it you have all seen that made you start this project?” she asked. There was a pause.
“Well, a lot of my friends use a lot of condoms,” chimed in Elizabeth. The group laughed. “But when they run out, they just decide not to use them. If there were free condoms, it might be easier for people to make smarter choices,” she said.
“Also, I know a lot of people have strict parents who won’t even talk about condoms. If you can’t even talk to your parents about something, you end up making really stupid decisions. This would help make better decisions easier,” added Esther, as the group gained courage.
“The point isn’t to encourage more people to have sex. It is to communicate that students should be making healthier decisions, and having the condoms their educates people about better ways to do things,” said Anthony.

The admin’s face lit up, seeing their drive. She explained the position of Fairfax County Public Schools not to provide condoms, to stay out of the heated debates of parents who believe students shouldn’t even be exposed to such things. She turned to Esther and Miranda, the team for this project who invited her to come. “If you’d like, I would be happy to meet with you again to show you the County’s actual policies. Then you could use that to find another way to do this project, such as educating students about not having sex in the first place,” she said. “I always believe in student movements. Change is much more influential when it comes from you, versus grown-ups like me,” she said.

“I’m interested. What are the other projects you are working on?” she asked.
“We noticed that teachers and janitors seem really under-appreciated. So we’re going to do fundraisers to get gifts to give to them to say thank you,” said Catherine.
“We want to use that storage room that never gets used to make a new food pantry. We would stock it, then manage it for students who need it,” said Anna.
“We also want to put basketball hoops around the trashcans,” said Esther with a smile. “There’s always a lot of trash outside the trashcans, because all the boys try to be LeBron James and throw their trash around. If we put hoops around the cans, it would encourage people to actually make it in the trash so the school can be clean,” she described. We laughed.

The administrator was uplifted, hearing such passionate young people express their ideas about how to make their school a better and healthier place. “If you will do me this honor, keep me up to date on your efforts,” she said. With that she left.

There was a reflective silence at the table.
“That was awesome,” said Esther.
“We should get more adults involved in what we do. Not to do things for us, but because we don’t know yet how to do things and it’s enlightening to hear what they know,” said Anthony in his wise way. It is a beautiful moment to witness when youth experience for the first time their power to create dialogue about the kind community they want to live in.

Before we parted, the leaders discussed yet another project they are working on: to talk with the school’s athletic directors and medical staff about making physicals for sports more affordable for students who can’t afford it.
“We [our medical office] do that,” I said with a smile. “Free physicals for students to get enrolled in sports,” I said. Their faces lit up, and together we reworked their project to raise awareness about our services for marginalized students wanting to do sports.

One of our CHHR staff said recently that she believed our youth teams could one day save lives that possibly no doctor could save. The vital work of doctors is to heal injuries and sicknesses once they become visible problems. But for those who dream of a healthier world, the vital work is to create a new culture that supports health and human rights.
“We’ve never done this much before,” said Elizabeth of herself and her friends, surprised by the capacity they had discovered in themselves as we walked out of the library together. Every youth has the power to become a champion of that culture. The task is simply to show them they have it. And then you’ve ignited a social movement.

“The sun shines not on us, but in us.”

-John Muir, environmentalist

(Image: Mt. Vernon leaders wearing CHHR’s “Health as Right” bracelets)

#healthasright #cultureofhealth #youthteams

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